


He what?!

by ProtestingCats96



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Gen, Protective Natasha Romanov, Tony Stark Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-21
Updated: 2019-09-18
Packaged: 2020-07-09 16:30:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 23,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19890892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProtestingCats96/pseuds/ProtestingCats96
Summary: Tony accidentally gets turned into his 3 year old self. Shenanigans ensue.





	1. 1

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you guys enjoy :)

Tony wakes up to noise. A lot of noise. There's an annoying constant beeping sound. There's a lot of people in the room. A few of them sound like they're arguing. Someone is gently lifting his arm to inspect it. The world sounds so much louder than he's used to. It scares him. For a moment he's overwhelmed by this sudden urge to cry but he pushes it back down to the surface.

Slowly, he cracks an eye open to inspect his surroundings. He's in a white room, with tubes attached to his arm. He moves his arms to get a feel of the sheets over him and then tries to sit up. Key word: tries.  
He is gently pushed down by a lady with red hair.

"Careful, Tony. Don't sit up too fast." She pats his head with affection a few times and guides him to lay down again. He's confused. He's never met this woman in his life, and he doesn't see Jarvis anywhere near him. Jarvis is usually with him wherever he goes. Panic rises up in Tony's chest. Where is he? Where's Jarvis? Who is this woman?

Tony musters up all the courage his tiny body can provide him at the moment and asks in a small voice, "Javis?"   
The lady smiles at him sweetly, though he senses the shift in atmosphere around them.

"Do you want Jarvis?"

Tony nods. 

"Okay, let's get you home first. Okay?" 

Tony nods again. He doesn't want to talk to this woman. She seems like one of those babysitters his parents leave him with whenever Jarvis is otherwise occupied and they're so mean to him. They don't treat him nicely even though all he wants to do is play and maybe nap a little. 

"Do you know who I am, Tony? Do you remember me?"

Tony searches his brain for a name to put on the lady but comes up empty. He nods his head no. The lady smiles at him kindly. 

"My name's Natasha. We met a long time ago."

"Okay." Tony says. He doesn't ever remember meeting this lady but he has a new nanny or babysitter almost every few weeks. Its hard to keep track of all of them.

Natasha leaves Tony in his room with a nurse and assures him that she'll be back once she's taken care of the discharge papers.  
The nurse meanwhile, carefully takes tubes and needles out of his arm and wraps it up with band aids. By the time Natasha comes back, he's all ready to leave this horrid smelling room and go back to Jarvis.

Natasha puts a hat on him that's too big and covers most of his face. She gently explains to him that its necessary for him to put on the hat so she can take him home. He silently obeys. Natasha carries him out of the building and puts him into the car that's already waiting for them on the curb. She straps him to a baby seat and takes her place beside him.

"Is he okay?" The driver asks from the front seat.

"Physically? Yes. Mentally? I don't know honestly. He hasn't said more than 2 words to me the entire time he's been awake. Doesn't remember me either."

Tony only pays attention to the conversation for a few seconds then tunes both the adults out. Instead, he chooses to look out of the window at the buildings passing by. He's used to people talking about him as if he's not there, especially his father.

Both the grown ups keep talking in hushed voices, Tony catches words like "de-aged", "serum", "effects". He doesn't know what they mean but judging from the faces Natasha is making, not anything good.

For now, he just wants to be with Jarvis.


	2. 2

"How did this happen?" Fury asks after a long pause, his voice sounding tired.

"He went in alone, we didn't think he would need backup since there were only 3 people inside. I should've gone with him." Regret is heavy in Steve's voice. As the leader, he should've made the right call. Now Tony's a 3 year old baby because of him.  
He feels Bucky right at his side making sure Steve knows he's there, its Bucky's way of providing comfort when they're in public. 

"And how long till it wears off? Will it wear off?" Fury has his attention towards Bruce now.  
The director is a saint for putting up with everyone in Bruce's opinion. God knows how much stress they cause him on a daily basis.

"The drug's chemical structure is similar to the super soldier serum. Its attached itself to his cells and caused massive changes to his body. Its not permanent though." Bruce supplies.

Clint's head whips towards him so fast, Bruce's afraid that he might accidentally snap his neck.

"Its not?!"

"No, Steve or Bucky's version of the serum was designed to infuse with the DNA so any changes it caused to the body are permanent. The one that Tony's hit with is only in his blood stream. It'll wash out eventually."

"How long is eventually?" Rhodey asks. They need to be on the lookout for anyone that might want to hurt Tony or Stark Industries. If news of his predicament gets out, they'll have to deal with a lot of trouble.

"I can't be sure but a month. Maybe two. We'll need to take blood samples to check once every few days." Bruce supplies. 

Fury looks a little relieved at some good news about this situation. He dismisses them and mentally makes a note to hold off their missions so they can deal with the baby Stark situation.

Everyone except Rhodey head towards the quinjet. They need to be back at the compound soon. They haven't heard back from Natasha yet. Steve left her to babysit as he felt that Tony would be comfortable around a woman rather than both the super soldiers (two guys 10 times Tony's size), Bruce (who could Hulk out and hurt Tony accidentally) and Clint (the guy with the Mohawk and a tattoo sleeve, which usually scares little children).

On the quinjet, Clint makes calls or leaves messages for the others, informing them of the situation. Usually Clint never misses the opportunity to make fun of Tony, but since the moment they had found his tiny body curled up in the iron man suit, something had seemed off to Clint. Children Tony's age aren't so submissive. They kick and scream when strangers pick them up. Especially considering the fact that Tony also had his memories reverted back to his 3 year old self. He doesn't remember any of his teammates. It's strange to see their resident talkative billionaire so quiet. It's unsettling.

Before Clint knows it, they are landing at the compound. When they make their way into the communal area later, it's unusually quiet. Natasha is sitting at the kitchen counter, drinking apple juice and looking at something on her StarkPad.

"Where is he?" Steve asks, his tone tense. He feels responsible for what happened. They all do. They know Tony can be rebellious, he likes to get on Steve's nerves by disobeying orders. But something like this has never happened before. Its got everyone on edge. 

"I put him down for a nap." Natasha says. "He kept asking for Jarvis though." She looks tired. Clint hasn't seen her like this in a long time. 

"Jarvis has been dead for decades though." Bucky says, confused.

"We can't just tell him that, unless you want to deal with a 3 year old and his tempur tantrum." Bruce says from his place on the couch. 

They're all quiet for several minutes, contemplating their situation and what they will do when Tony wakes up.

One by one, everyone retires to their rooms. All except Natasha. She heads to Tony's room where he's still soundly sleeping. She lays down next to him. If he wakes up in the middle of the night from a nightmare or needs to be changed, she wants to be there for him.


	3. 3

Its 10 am when Steve walks into the kitchen, only to find Tony sitting in a high chair and Bruce feeding him some apple slices and grapes. Its strangely endearing watching Bruce interact with a baby. 

He greets the both of them and moves on to make himself a cup of coffee.

"Where's Nat?" Natasha had been glued to Tony from the moment they had found him like this.

"Fury called her in this morning for an update on Tony." Bruce answers.

Tony looks up at the mention of Natasha's name. He takes a quick look around to see if she's there but goes back to his fruits when he doesn't find her. It seems like he's taken a liking to her.

"Has he said anything yet?" Steve asks, voice low so Tony won't hear him.

"Nothing. He didn't even ask for breakfast until I put it in front of him. Steve, its not normal for a child his age to be quiet like this." Bruce replies in the same low voice. The last thing he needs is for Tony to overhear them and start asking about Jarvis again. God knows what they'll do when he does.

"I know... God, I wish Vision was here." Vision at least sounds like Jarvis. If he were here, Tony would feel a little at ease. But he's on a mission with Sam and Wanda right now and who knows how long it'll take for them to get back.

"Yeah, you and me both." With that, Bruce turns around to tend to Tony. The 3 year old has finished his breakfast fruits and sits there patiently while Bruce asks him if he wants more and starts cleaning his hands and face when Tony shakes his head no. 

"When did we get a chair for the kid?" Bucky's voice startles Bruce a little bit. He and Nat have this habit of sneaking behind people and scaring the daylights out of them. They say that they don't do it on purpose but Bruce has his suspicions. 

"Nat ordered baby stuff last night. It was here when I woke up." 

"That's probably a good idea. We need to baby proof the compound soon. Tony could get hurt." Steve says from his spot on the sofa. 

Bruce carries Tony from the high chair and puts him down on the ground to play, where a pile of toys is already set up.  
Tony looks at the toys for a good 3 seconds before looking back at Bruce to make sure that its okay to sit down and play. His father doesn't like it when he wastes his time with toys. 

Sensing his hesitation, Bucky sits down criss cross in front of the toy pile and takes a stuffed dog. Bucky has never been around children that much, so he doesn't exactly know how to face this situation but seeing Tony, the person who has helped him so much through his troubles after the war with Thanos, makes him want to help somehow. Bucky then extends the stuffed toy towards Tony. Tony is hesitant at first, but takes the stuffed toy with his small hands. 

2 hours later, Natasha walks in, only to find Bucky and Tony building a tower with building blocks. Its looks oddly similar to the old Stark tower.   
Bucky notices her first.

"Hey, how was Fury?" Bucky greets.

"Stressed. The man doesn't get paid enough to put up with Stark's antics." 

Tony, as soon as he hears her voice, is up and waddling towards her as fast as he can. He gently tugs at her pants and extends his arms towards her. Natasha picks him up. Tony immediately proceeds to put his face on her shoulder and closes his eyes. It takes only a few minutes before he's out like a light. 

"How are you his favorite already? Its been like 1 day since he's been like this." Bucky has to applaud Natasha. 

"Its because I'm a nice person, Barnes." She teases, then informs him that she'll go tuck Tony in bed for his nap.

Bucky won't ever say it out loud, but in that moment he swears Natasha looks like Tony's mother. The way she tends to him, takes care of him. At the back of his mind, Bucky knows that she craves for mother hood. The fact that she's not able to have children bothers her more than she let's on. Taking care of Tony in his child form probably gives them both something they lacked in their life before. For Natasha, its having a child of her own and for Tony, its probably having a parental figure who cares. Maybe that's why he's so taken with her.

Bucky cleans up all the toys they had played with and neatly puts them in their place.

The rest of the day passes without little to no fuss on Tony's part. He's almost too well behaved, as Clint puts it. Steve is worried too. Its been a long time since he's thought of Howard. For the first time in years, Steve has to wonder whether Howard was a good parent to Tony. The way Tony behaves around them tells Steve more than he needs to know on Howard's parenting skills. He feels bad for a lot of things he's said to Tony in the past. He thought that his parents had spoiled him to the point where he'd become unbelievably entitled and annoying for the first few years of meeting him. Little by little, his opinions had changed seeing Tony actually caring about the people around him.   
This Tony is new to Steve though. Steve has never seen him so vulnerable and complacent. 

By the time they put Tony down for sleep, its almost 11:30 pm. Since Natasha has to be out and about tomorrow, attending meetings with Steve, Bucky and Bruce are put on babysitting duty. Clint volunteers to fill Pepper in on the situation. He hasn't gotten time to get in touch with her since she's in Paris on official SI business. She gets back tomorrow and Steve's worried she might have the freak out of a life time if she sees her husband shrunk down to toddler size.  
Clint just hopes that she doesn't faint on him. He isn't exactly an expert on consoling people because their spouse turned into a child. God help him.


	4. 4

Okay so, turns out Pepper is surprisingly understanding of the whole 'my husband has reverted back to his 3 year old self both mentally and physically and doesn't remember who I am' situation. Apparently when you've almost died 7-8 times in an attempt to save the world, turning into a baby doesn't come as that much of a shock to your wife. She's shaken at first, Clint can tell that much. Then she's quiet for a long time, which scares Clint if he's being honest. Then she takes a deep breath and asks if she can see Tony. 

Clint is skeptical at first because he's 100% sure she'll start crying any moment now, but he leads her to the kitchen anyway, where Tony is eating his PB&J sandwich. Bruce puts a sippy cup of orange juice in front of him, which Tony gratefully grabs and takes a big sip from it.   
Bruce freezes for a solid 2 seconds when he sees Pepper but composes himself and wishes her a good afternoon. He politely inquires about her business trip, then excuses himself to the living room leaving Pepper and Clint with Tony.

Pepper looks a little uncertain now that she's actually in front of Tony. Clint squeezes her shoulder in encouragement.

She takes a deep breath and says hi to Tony. Her voice comes out smaller than she had intended. Tony looks up from his sandwich and says hi back to her.

"My name's Pepper." Pepper begins again in an attempt to get Tony to talk to her more.

"Hi Pep." Tony answers and once again goes back to his sandwich. Clint had warned Pepper that Tony wouldn't talk much, but being called 'Pep' warms her heart. Tony calls her 'Pep' all the time. She's aware that as a toddler, he most likely can't pronounce certain words and everyone's names so he resorts to shortening them, yet being called by that nickname gives her hope that everything will be just fine.

She stays and plays with Tony for a little while until she has to leave again for a board meeting. Being CEO of a multi billion dollar company isn't easy. She has to be constantly working and making sure everything runs smoothly. Unfortunately, that keeps her away from Tony most of the time. She makes a mental note to takes a few weeks off work when Tony gets back to normal so she can spend some time with him. She promises Tony that she'll come see him as soon as she can and leaves. 

After she's gone, he slowly walks up to Bucky and raises his arms towards the soldier. By now, everyone has figured out that Tony likes to be carried. He can get around fine by himself but Bruce suspects that being carried makes Tony feel tall. 

As soon as Bucky has Tony in his arms, Tony instantly goes to admire and stroke Bucky's vibranium arm. He's been fascinated by it even since he first realized that Bucky's left arm was not soft like his right one. Whenever Tony gets the chance, he likes to play with the shiny arm.

Bruce enters the living room a while later and finds both Bucky and Tony asleep on the couch. Bucky has his arms protectively wrapped around Tony and Tony is holding onto one of Bucky's fingers with his tiny hands. Bruce asks Friday to snap a picture and put it in a folder for Tony to see when he gets back to his normal size. He takes the quilt off the back of the couch and drapes it over the both of them and quietly leaves. 

Tony wakes up almost an hour later to a wet diaper. He squirms around in an effort to make the wet feeling go away but it only gets worse. Tony's constant movement wakes Bucky as well. At this point, Tony is near tears. Bucky quickly looks him over and upon finding a dirty diaper, takes him to get him changed. Tony refuses to let his tears fall. Bucky, for the 100th time, wonders what kind of shitty parents did Tony have growing up. The kid's clearly scared every time he thinks he's done something to inconvenience the adults around him. 

"Tony, its okay. Accidents happen. Please don't be upset." 

Tony remains quiet for a long time.

"I sowwy." He says in a small voice. This is the first time Bucky's heard him speak in 3 days. He's a little relived if he's being honest.

"Hey, you don't need to say sorry buddy. Accidents happen all the time." Bucky says in an attempt to console him. The last thing he needs is for Tony to feel insecure and ashamed of him peeing himself. At his age, he probably can't control himself.

"You know," Bucky starts in an effort to cheer him up, "the compound belongs to a friend of mine. He let's everyone stay here because he's a nice person. When I first moved in here, I used to make a lot of accidents. I'd break things. Sometimes even accidentally dent the doors or walls but he never once got angry with me. Do you know why?"

Tony shakes his head no.

"Its because he's a good friend. He understands that accidents happen. Even adults make mistakes. You shouldn't be ashamed of something you can't control, buddy." He doubts that what he's saying is making much sense to Tony but at least he's not on the verge of crying anymore. The best Bucky can do is console him and make him feel safe. By the time he's finished changing Tony, its almost 4 pm. Natasha and Steve will be getting back soon. As soon as she gets in, Tony will be running towards her at full speed. Bucky has yet to figure out how she managed to be Tony's favorite in only 3 days. He's planning on snatching that spot from her very soon.

"Are you hungry, buddy?" Bucky figures that he'd better give the kid a snack since dinner won't be for a while. 

Tony doesn't often ask for food, but once someone puts something in front of him, he'll eventually start taking little bites. Bucky offers Tony a cookie which Tony gladly takes and starts munching on it.   
30 minutes later, Steve walks in closely followed by Carol. Natasha is no where in sight though.

"Where's Nat?" Bucky inquires, to which Steve informs him that she had to stay back because Fury needed her for something. Carol, meanwhile, has walked right past Bucky and is sitting down on the floor with Tony. It isn't often that Carol drops by. She's not even on the planet most of the time. When she does visit, she makes sure to see Tony. She and Tony had developed a strong bond after the war. 

Her voice is faint but Bucky's enhanced senses pick it up anyway. 

"Hi Tony." She almost coos.

Tony says hi back. Carol pats his hair affectionately a few times, picks up a nearby stuffed penguin and starts playing with Tony. Tony goes willingly to her. Its strange watching him act this way since he's usually shy around people. With Carol, he seems at ease, as if something deep inside him is telling him that she won't hurt him.

It turns out that Carol will be staying with them for a few days. Friday informs them that Loki might drop by as well. Thor is busy building Asgard from ground up, its rare that he pays a visit to the compound. If he needs something, he usually sends Loki or Valkyrie.  
Steve makes a mental note to keep Clint away from Loki. They like to make things difficult for each other. When they're not annoying each other, they're setting up pranks for everyone else. It felt good to see them getting along at first, but now its just annoying.

From the living room, he can hear Carol talking to Tony softly. She's cleaning the cookie crumbs off his hands and face with a tissue.

\- 

"Tasha?" Tony asks after a while. Bruce, who had wandered into the communal area about 20 minutes ago, wonders what he should tell Tony. Natasha might not be back for a while, and Bruce wouldn't know how to deal with Tony if he started fussing or crying.

"Natasha is-" 

"Right here." Comes Natasha's voice from the door. As Bruce had predicted, Tony's up on his tiny feet and waddling towards her as fast as his feet can carry him. Carol giggles at Tony and gets up to greet Natasha.   
For a brief moment, Bruce wonders if Tony still remembers Jarvis. Natasha did inform them that he asked for Jarvis upon waking up as a child, but he hasn't said a peep about him again. Bruce is worried how he will react to learning that Jarvis is dead, and if Tony's just forgotten to ask about Jarvis again as he's surrounded by so many new faces or if he's just being patient with all of them, giving them time to get Jarvis for him. Bruce suspects that its the latter. Tony is very intelligent, even as a toddler he perceives things around him differently than other children his age. Bruce is honestly not looking forward to the temper tantrum Tony will most likely throw when he can't find Jarvis for long.


	5. 5

Its been 2 weeks since Tony's been turned into a toddler. Bruce has taken 2 blood tests in that time frame to check how long they'll have to deal with a 3 year old Tony. The serum is reducing little by little from his system but not fast enough. It seems like it'll take a while for him to get back to his old self. It worries Bruce to see Tony like this. There's a lot of things for them to consider and lookout for, now that Tony wont be assisting them in missions. If word gets out of his current situation, they could get in a lot of trouble. Tony's been out of the public's eye for a while now and that's unlike him. Soon people will start asking questions, Fury will take care of it if that should happen though. 

Then there's Tony's condition to take into account as well. Its like his toddler self and grown up self are two different people entirely. He likes to act as if nothing bothers him yet his child self is probably the most vulnerable toddler Bruce has ever seen.  
Emotional abuse as well as neglect does that to a child, Bruce just never realized that it started from such an early age. So far, Tony seems to be doing okay with them. He goes willingly to anyone, doesn't cause trouble, plays quietly by himself, eats whatever is given to him and mostly tries to stay out of the adults' way. The only people he seems to ask about are Natasha when she's been gone too long, and Jarvis. Someone is always there to distract him from the topic. He's 3, Bruce isn't even sure if he understands the concept of death yet. Though Bruce is a little relieved at the fact that he's started speaking more than 2 words a day. Its really not healthy for him to not express himself like most children of his age.

Bruce is brought out of his thoughts by a little tug at his pant legs. He looks down, expecting either Dum-E, Butterfingers or U to be asking for pets (they've been doing that a lot since Tony's regression, Bruce knows its because Tony hasn't been down in the labs to give them attention), but instead finds Tony. He'll have to ask Friday later about locking down equipment rooms or labs where Tony could get hurt. She would have alerted someone if Tony was in any real danger though.  
How Tony has managed to get himself down to Bruce's lab, he'll never know. 

"Buce, up." Tony says and Bruce bends down to pick him up. He still can't pronounce his R's.

"Hey bud." 

"Miss you." Tony says, then puts both his hands on Bruce's face to emphasis his point. Its adorable to Bruce how Tony has opened up enough to express his feelings to his teammates. Once you get past the shyness, Tony's actually a pretty sweet kid.

"You do? I've only been gone for a few hours." This is when Friday chooses to inform him that he's been down in his lab for 31 hours and 17 minutes. Damn, Bruce really should stop spending so much time coped up in a lab.

"Isn't anyone taking care of you? How did you get down here?" Bruce should probably inform the others that Tony knows his way around the compound. Its dangerous for him to be wandering around unsupervised. 

Tony chooses not to answer and busies himself in looking at something over Bruce's shoulder. Bruce has learned that whenever Tony does this, even as a grown up, its because he'd rather not let people meddle in his business. 

Bruce sighs, he'll just ask Friday later. For now, he should get back to the communal area. Tony's probably hungry and someone would be looking for him by now. 

True enough, when they make it to the living room, Clint's on his hands and knees looking under the sofa, probably trying to find Tony.

"Looking for someone?" Bruce says, startling Clint. Clint is up on his feet and walking towards Bruce within seconds once he spots the toddler on Bruce's hip.

"Anthony Stark!" Clint begins, voice in full Dad Mode™, "how many times have I told you not to wander off on your own? Do you know how worried I was?" Clint has the 'no funny business' face on and even Bruce is starting to feel a little scared now.

"Its okay Clint, he was just down in the labs with me." Bruce tries to dissipate some of the tension from the air because Tony's started trembling in his arms. From his limited observation, Bruce guesses yelling is one of Tony's triggers. He must used to get like this when Howard scolded him.

"The labs are dangerous for him Bruce, he could've hurt himself, or worse." Clint rubs his eyes, breathes out a sigh and turns towards Tony again, who by this point has practically glued himself to Bruce and refuses to look at Clint. It takes a moment for Clint to realize that Tony is shaking. 

"Tony? You okay, buddy?" Clint goes to touch Tony to make sure that the little avenger is okay, but Bruce steps away just enough so that Tony is out of Clint's reach.

"You've probably triggered something by yelling at him. I don't think he'd react positive to your touch, Clint." Clint looks hurt but let's Bruce take Tony with him. It takes a while for Bruce to calm Tony and put him down for a nap. Even in his sleep, he has a death grip on Bruce's finger so Bruce stays with him until he wakes up again. 

When they're done with dinner that night and Natasha has finally tucked Tony into bed, Bruce informs everyone present about what had happened during the day. He asks Friday how Tony had managed to locate the labs, to which Friday replies that Tony had wandered down different floors until he found Bruce. Carol then asks Friday to lock down anything that could be dangerous for Tony until further notice.  
Bruce also informs everyone about Tony's almost panic attack.

"It was... odd seeing him like that. Clint didn't even raise his voice that much but Tony was clinging to me like he wanted to disappear." 

Natasha glares at Clint and tells him to apologize to Tony first thing in the morning. Clint feels awful though, he shouldn't have talked to Tony the way he did, he's just a kid and god knows how much of a shitty father Howard was for Tony to react in such a way in response to some light scolding.

Clint sleeps in Tony's room that night, unable to shake the feeling of guilt.


	6. 6

Tony wakes up around 10 am the next morning. Clint is sleeping in bed with him. The toddler tries to squiggle out of Clint's arms but ends up waking him in the process.   
Clint has to be out on a mission later in the day, so he gets to getting Tony changed and fed before he leaves. Tony is awfully quiet this morning, even more so than he usually is. Clint knows its because of what happened yesterday and he feels shitty for scaring Tony, who's clearly had issues with his father being a shitty person. 

"Hey Tones?" Clint asks in the middle of changing Tony into a onesie. Tony acknowledges Clint with a nod of his head but otherwise stays quiet.

"I'm sorry that I yelled at you yesterday. I shouldn't have done that." Clint makes eye contact with Tony to make sure that he's listening. He is. Clint continues.

"I got worried when I couldn't find you. You can't go off wandering like that, you could've gotten hurt, almost gave me a heart attack." Clint has kids of his own, and Nathaniel likes to wander off when no one's looking. He can't remember how many times he's had to search for his youngest through out the house, heart in his throat, thinking the worst but then finding him asleep under a table or something. 

"And I promised Pepper that I would take care of you. We all want you to be safe, Tony." Clint doesn't expect Tony to forgive him. He's a shy child and clearly has had issues with emotional abuse before. It'll take time for him to trust Clint no matter how much he apologizes. 

Its rare for more than 3 of the team members to be present in the compound at any given day. Today, however, is one of these days. Clint walks into the communal area to find Wanda, Steve, Sam, Bruce, Loki and Stephen.

If Sam and Wanda are here, that means their mission ended early and they must've gotten in late last night. Vision must be here too. That gives Clint some peace of mind. Now at least when (because if they know Tony, they all know its coming) Tony throws a temper tantrum over not finding Jarvis, Vision will be there to sooth him. He at least sounds like Jarvis.   
Friday did inform them that Loki would be dropping by and he has no idea why Stephen is here. Probably to discuss something with Bruce.

Tony, upon spotting Steve who is sitting on the sofa and sipping coffee, instantly wiggles out of Clint's arms and asks to be picked up by the Captain. Steve picks up Tony and gets up to make him breakfast. 

Clint still hasn't figured out how Steve knows how to take care of a toddler. As far as Clint knows, Steve hasn't had any experience with children. 

Loki follows Steve into the kitchen. Stephen tries to pretend like he doesn't care but gives up and walks to where Steve and Loki are after a few minutes. Clint hears Loki's amused chuckles from where he's sitting. A few minutes later, he walks in with Tony sitting on his shoulders and gently patting his hair. Its strange seeing Loki so affectionate with a child. Clint never took him as the type who enjoys children's company. Loki looks... happy. 

Clint excuses himself and heads out to get his suit on and grab his weapons. He has a mission to attend to.


	7. 7

Clint is gone for 4 days. What was supposed to be a 2 hour mission has extended to 4 days. He's not surprised, in his line of work this is a normal occurrence. What surprises him though is that when he does return, Natasha informs him that Tony's been asking for him. Its late and Tony must be asleep by now, but the archer still makes a stop by Tony's room just to be sure. The toddler is fast asleep with a thumb in his mouth and one of Clint's old T-shirts on. 

Clint gently takes Tony's thumb out of his mouth and puts a pacifier in. In the morning when Steve brings Tony out to breakfast, he immediately perks up upon seeing Clint and wants to be held. Tony doesn't let go of him the entire day.

-

Its been almost a month since Tony's situation. The avengers have miraculously managed to keep things under control while taking care of Tony. Sam considers it a personal accomplishment that Tony hasn't thrown a tantrum over anything yet. The joy is short lived though because that afternoon Tony decides that he wants to climb and sit in his chair at the table, all by himself. Wanda let's him as she doesn't want to upset the baby avenger by telling him no. 

She busies herself with making Tony a snack. Tony on the other hand, is trying his hardest to get on top of his chair. He uses his tiny arms and legs to hoist himself up, he's almost to the top when his fingers slip and he tumbles down to the floor. There's a loud thump and Wanda turns around to see what has caused it. Tony sits on the floor for a few seconds trying to understand what has happened to him, then he starts pouting and sniffing. Wanda knows its coming and picks him up to calm him down. This only seems to escalate the water works though and Tony's crying into Wanda's shoulder in no time. 

Tony's crying brings Bucky out of the attached study and in to the living room.

"What's wrong?"

"He fell down." 

Bucky's by Wanda's side in seconds checking to make sure Tony hasn't injured himself. He seems to have no visible injuries aside from the light bruises on his knees. Bucky guesses it's more from the shock than the pain that Tony's crying.

"Shh, Tony. It's okay. You're okay." Wanda has one hand supporting his weight while the other is gently running through his hair. They've learned that it calms him down.  
Today isn't one of those days though, it seems nothing will calm him down.

"Wan' Javis." Tony sobs into Wanda's shoulder. No matter how much Wanda and Bucky try to console him, Tony keeps asking for Jarvis. They don't exactly know how to handle this situation. They haven't even let Tony see Vision up until now. They figured he'd be scared by a person who has red skin, yellow eyes, sounds like his dead butler and has a glowy stone in his forehead.

"I'll go get Vision." Bucky's out of the room before Wanda can say anything. 2 minutes later, Vision is walking into the room through the wall in his human form, while Bucky uses the door like a normal person. 

He strategically takes Tony from Wanda so that Tony can't see his face. Vision hasn't held many children before so Wanda has to help him to hold Tony correctly. Though as soon as Vision speaks, Tony clenches his tiny fists into his cloths.

"Tony, its okay. I'm here. Shh. Shh." It takes a while for them to calm Tony down. Though his crying has reduced to sniffles every now and then, Tony still refuses to let go of Vision.

"Javis, I hurt." His voice is small. Vision doesn't exactly know how to deal with this.   
Wanda, through her telepathy, guides Vision and they manage to calm him down and get his breathing to normal. When Tony actually has had the chance to look at Vision's face, he doesn't seem to react at all. They guess its because the serum in Tony's system is probably making his childhood memories hazy.   
Tony is however exhausted after crying so much, so they put him to bed for an afternoon nap.

Steve walks in 10 minutes later and discovers all 3 of then minus Tony on the floor of the living room.

"What's happening?" He asks, though he's not sure if he wants to know.

"Tony." Bucky answers. It seems that that's all he's going to get out of them as Wanda and Vision choose not even to look at Steve. He's pretty sure Wanda's asleep on the floor and Vision's deep in thought so Steve let's it go and walks out.

-

Tony's sat in Bruce's lab. Pepper distracts him while Bruce takes blood for the serum reduction exam. The way she behaves with Tony, Bruce has no doubt in his mind that she would make a great mother and maybe that's what Tony needs in his life too, once he gets back to his normal self. 

Tony's human, therefore has human limitations. They're all aware that he can't go on being Ironman forever. Eventually, his body won't be able to take the physical burden that comes with being Ironman. He has to settle down some day, and when Tony has children, he'll be a great father to them. Bruce has witnessed him going full Dad™ on Peter before. Its adorable to watch.

Tony's giggles bring Bruce out of his thoughts. After a thorough examination, he tells Pepper that the serum is almost 50% out of Tony's system, though its possible that it'll be almost 8-10 weeks before its totally gone. Pepper looks sad for only a moment, then her face is back to normal. She thanks Bruce and takes Tony up to the communal area. Its almost time for lunch.   
Bruce decides to head up there too, he hasn't eaten in the last 12 hours and Hulk is starting to get angry for starving him. Its still strange to be able to communicate with Hulk this way. He's actually able to hold up conversations now rather than just feeling an ongoing assault of angry and confused emotions. When Bruce makes it to the kitchen, he's met with the adorable sight of Tony trying to put a strawberry in his mouth. The only problem is that its too big and no way would Tony be able to eat it in one bite. Pepper gently pries it out of his hands and then proceeds to cut strawberries into smaller pieces for him to eat while Loki distracts Tony with his magic. He produces green sparks from his hands which Tony seems mesmerized by.

Bruce steals some strawberries from Pepper and moves on to make himself something to eat. Somewhere from his right, Tony giggles. 

"Again! Again!" He squeals. Bruce turns in enough time to witness Loki making butterflies out of his magic. He's not actually a bad guy once you get to know him. The tesseract really did a number on Loki in the battle of New York. Being mind controlled is awful. Bruce was under the influence of Wanda's magic for one afternoon and he killed so many people. He can't imagine how Loki must have felt being controlled by the tesseract for days and tortured by Thanos.

"Mrs. Stark," Friday interrupts, its weird to hear her calling Pepper anything other than 'Miss Potts', but after the wedding, Tony had went as far as putting Pepper as Mrs. Stark in all of Friday's files and systems. The override code is kept with his Ironman suit override codes, which only Steve, Peter and Rhodey know. Tony's a bit dramatic like that.

"I've got Mr. Parker on hold for Mr. Stark." 

"Friday, does Peter know about Tony?" 

"I'm afraid not. Agent Barton chose not to tell Mr. Parker anything given his psychological evaluations." Peter had taken being snapped and then being brought back to life a lot harder than the others. He was just a teenager at the time. Participating in a war took an emotional toll on him. After everything had settled down, Tony had invited Peter to be a part of the avengers on the condition that he had to go to a therapist and work on his PTSD. It's rare for Peter to drop by the compound these days and even when he does, he spends the day mostly with Tony. Peter wants to get himself in a better place mentally before he joins the avengers. Bruce admires that, not everyone has the courage to face their nightmares head on. Though he admits, not telling Peter anything was a smart move on Clint's part. Peter could react negatively to such news.

"Patch him through." Pepper says and almost instantly, Peter's voice pops up.

"Mr. Stark!" He sounds a little out of breath, Bruce notes.

"Peter, its Pepper." 

"Pepper? Where's Mr. Stark?" In the background, Bruce can hear the sound of traffic and the wind. He suspects that Peter is probably swinging through the city as Spiderman right now. Loki comes to the same conclusion and looks mildly concerned for the teenager's safety.

"What's wrong? Did you need help with something?" Pepper tries to divert his attention from Tony.

"Pepper, I need to talk to Mr. Stark. Its important." 

"Listen Pete, this might not be a good time for that." Pepper sighs.

"...Why? What's wrong? Did something happen to him?" Peter's sound seems to have gone up a few octaves.

"No, no. He's alright. Listen, why don't you stop by tonight. We'll discuss whatever you need help with, then." Loki answers. 

"...Loki?" Peter asks, his voice clearly surprised at Loki being at the compound. Peter must not be expecting the god to be there.

"Yes?"

"Nothing's happened to him, right? I won't find him in a casket when I get there?" Loki looks... sad, to say the least but reassures Peter that Tony is in fact not dead. 

After hanging up, Bruce asks Friday to inform him when Peter gets there. He wants to be present in case Peter reacts differently to a 3 year old Tony.   
Tony shows little reaction to Peter's voice. Like most of his adult life, Bruce guesses that Tony doesn't remember Peter as well. 

"Brother," Thor's voice interrupts. Bruce had no idea that Thor was even anywhere near the compound. He really should come out of his lab once in a while. 

"Was that young Peter?" Thor asks, excited. He picks Tony up in the process and starts feeding him strawberries. 

Okay, when did Tony start going to Thor willingly? Last Bruce checked, the big muscles and 2 different eye colors should scare Tony. Bruce really really should come out of his lab once in a while. 

Tony is eating his strawberries while he playfully tugs at Thor's beard. Loki's telling Thor about how Peter will be visiting later in the evening. Thor has taken a weird liking to Peter. He's always excited to meet Peter whenever the soon to be avenger visits. Bruce will never understand how he managed to do that because Peter, like Tony, is also intimidated by the big muscles and the height.  
Bruce does recall Peter saying once something along the lines of how Thor could slap him out of existence if he wanted to. Bruce agrees. 

-

Its later in the day that Steve enters the communal area and almost has a heart attack at the sight of Sam tossing Tony in the air and then catching him.

"No! No. No." Steve rapidly moves towards them and takes Tony from Sam and hugs him to his chest.  
"We've talked about this Sam. You can't just toss him in the air like that!"

Sam pouts, "He likes it." 

"Of course he likes it, he's a kid. He doesn't know that if he falls down, he could crack his head open and die. You're the adult here. You should know better." Steve sets Tony down to play with his toys while giving Sam, the stare of disappointment™.

"Jeez, okay mom." Sam mutters under his breath but Steve catches it anyway because of his enhanced senses. 

"Stop calling me that!" Steve whines. Bucky and Sam have been pushing his buttons lately, trying to see who can tick him off the most. So far, Bucky's in the lead with 2 points. 

Sam's about to say something about not paying his taxes to gain the lead and also, probably giving Steve a heart attack in the process when Bucky enters. He smirks at Sam. He's up to no good. Sam knows because Bucky is carrying stolen government property in his metal arm.

"Hey Steve." He casually greets his boyfriend. Then drops a stop sign and an orange traffic cone on the table. 

Steve is stunned for a few seconds before he collects himself and asks Bucky what he has just put down on the table.

"Oh, these?" Bucky says, as if its no big deal just taking stop signs and traffic cones from the road. "They looked cool, so I just took 'em."   
Steve looks like he's about to pass out. 

"Took them? You just took them? From the side of the road?! Bucky, people need those. You can't just take government property!" Listen, Steve Rogers could not give any less fucks about the government. The only reason he's angry is because people might drive into a ditch and there might not be a stop sign there to warn them of their impending doom. 

"I don't know, they looked cool." Bucky shrugs. 

"Cool?! They looked coo- okay. I don't need this right now." With that, Steve picks up the stop sign and traffic cone and walks out. "Friday, scan the street cams footage. Tell me where the idiot got these from."

"Right away, Captain Rogers." Friday answers.

Steve looks like he's about to pop a vein. Bucky has never looked more satisfied in his life. 

Sam, 10 - Bucky, 13

Sam really needs to up his game.


	8. 8

Its exactly 7:40 pm when Friday alerts Bruce that Peter has entered the premises of the compound. Bruce closes the book he's been reading and goes to look for Pepper. Unfortunately, she had left earlier that day to attend a few board meetings and SI business and would not be back for a week at the most. In the living room, he can hear Natasha playing peek-a-boo with Tony. He decides he might as well tell Natasha about the situation. She's good at handling kids anyway. She can handle the situation better than Bruce. 

\- 

Peter is.... at a loss for words. He doesn't know what to think of this situation. He has just walked into the communal area and Natasha is holding a baby on her hip. A baby. On black widow's hip.  
He's positive that she's not the baby's biological mother. At this point he's worried whether Natasha just straight up stole a baby from some couple on the street just because she wanted a baby. 

"Hi. Am I interrupting something?" Peter half jokes. Natasha gives him a knowing smile. 

"Peter, sit down."

"Oh no, that's okay. I was going down to the labs to see Mr. Stark." 

"About that." Natasha and Bruce both exchange glances. Peter is starting to get suspicious. 

"What's going on?"

Natasha gestures towards the child on her hip and sets him down. The child in question, starts walking towards Peter, as if to inspect the new person who has just walked in. 

"You don't need to go down to the labs. Tony's right here." Natasha explains.

Tony, at the mention on his name, raises his hands up towards Peter. "Up." 

Peter bends down and picks him up. 

"Seriously guys, who's kid is this? And where's Mr. Stark?" He hasn't held many children before so he keeps an extra tight grip on the kid so he wouldn't fall over. He's pretty sure both Bruce and Natasha are pulling some kind of a prank on him. 

"Ha ha. Very funny. You got me." Peter good naturedly rolls his eyes. Tony has started playing with the spiderman suit peaking out from Peter's neck, just above his shirt.   
It takes a moment for him to realize that Natasha isn't joking, neither is Bruce, but there's no way that the child in his arms is Tony. That's impossible.

There's definitely something wrong that they're not telling him. Oh god, Mr. Stark's dead. Or maybe somebody else is dead?  
He directs his attention towards Bruce now.

"Bruce?" Peter hates how his voice is giving away the fact that he's starting to panic, hates that he's getting panicky over something that might not even be a big deal. Karen tells him to regulate his breathing through the comm he's wearing.

Natasha is by his side in seconds. She takes the kid from Peter and hands him to Bruce.

"Okay Pete, just breathe for me. Okay? Breathe." She rubs his back and guides him towards the couch. It takes a few minutes but he's managed to keep himself under control.  
Peter asks about Tony again. Bruce gently puts down the kid in Peter's lap.

"Okay Peter. I'm gonna need you to listen very carefully, but try not to yell or freeze up. It scares Tony." Bruce explains everything that has happened. Natasha stays right by his side in case Peter starts to panic again. When they're done, Peter takes a deep breath. He's quiet for a long time. 

"I... need to get away from here." Peter says and abruptly gets up, hands Tony to Bruce and walks towards the elevator. Friday, after a few minutes, informs Bruce and Natasha that he has gone up to his designated room. Natasha feels a little at ease knowing that he's inside the compound. She knows that he'll come down eventually to see Tony. And Natasha and Bruce both know better than to stop Peter from leaving. He needs some time to himself right now.

Its hard for Peter to process this information. His mentor, who he also considers his father figure, is a child now. He is a defenseless little baby. Anyone can hurt him, or worse. How will he protect himself? Someone will constantly have to be with him at all times. God forbid if they lose him, or someone takes him from them. If the world finds out, there will be no end to the assassination attempts. Oh god, he's totally panicking right now. 

Peter focuses on getting his breathing under control. This is the second time today that he's almost had a panic attack. Yeah, he doesn't handle stress very well, especially when it comes to Tony. Especially because he saw the man almost die in the war. Peter cannot lose Tony after losing both his parents and his Uncle Ben.   
He asks Karen to get in touch with Friday and deliver any information they've managed to collect on Tony's condition.

Karen reads him Bruce's reports conducted through Tony's blood samples.  
Peter relaxes a little upon learning that eventually Tony will be back to his normal self. He feels a little silly now for panicking the way he did.   
He feels exhausted from the day's events, so Peter decides to take a nap. He'll deal with everything else when he wakes up.


	9. 9

When Peter wakes up, its 12:30 am. He must have slept longer than he had intended to. His stomach growls and he decides to get a snack for himself. His fast metabolism requires him to eat something every 4-5 hours. It gets kinda annoying sometimes.

The TV is on in the communal area when he gets down there. Its dark but he has heightened senses and he can easily spot someone asleep on the couch. Upon closer inspection, he finds that its Wanda. She's snuggling Tony, who is wide awake and watching the cartoon playing on the TV screen. 

Even as a kid, Tony is insomniac. Peter smiles. Somethings never change. He gently pries the toddler out of Wanda's arms, covers her with a quilt, tells Friday to turn off the TV and walks into the kitchen as to not wake up Wanda. 

"Hey, Mr. Stark." The toddler just stares at Peter. Peter remembers Bruce telling him that Tony doesn't remember anyone like before.

"I'm Peter." 

Tony remains quiet. Peter sets him down in a chair and sets about making himself something to eat.   
He doesn't know what to say to Tony. He wishes Natasha was here. She seems to know how to take care of children. Peter doesn't know how he should interact with Tony. Peter's not used to seeing him like this, all vulnerable and totally dependant on the people around him.

Behind him, Tony lightly smacks on his chair to get Peter to look at him. Before speaking, Tony makes sure he has Peter's full attention.

"Banana." 

It takes a moment for Peter to realize that Tony's demanding food. He's quick to cut up a banana into smaller pieces and place it in front of Tony in a bowl. 

"Do... you want me to help you eat?" Tony ignores Peter and goes to eat his banana. Peter is quick to hold his tiny hands back. 

"Oh no, Mr. Stark. Wait. You shouldn't eat with your hands. God knows how many germs are on there." He picks up a spoon and starts helping Tony eat. The toddler seems to be enjoying being fed. When Peter's finished with Tony, he cleans him up and just decides to make some instant noodles for himself because he's too lazy to cook anything else anyway. He hands Tony a cup of water while he eats his noodles. He figures the toddler must be thirsty. What he does not realize though, is that you never leave a toddler with anything liquid unsupervised. Peter swears that he only turned away for 2 seconds but when he turns around, Tony has managed to spill the water on himself and is looking like he's about to cry. 

Peter is quick to pick Tony up from his chair. He asks Friday where all of Tony's cloths are kept and heads there to change him. 

"Don't be sad Mr. Stark. We'll get you into some clean clothes."   
Peter really should learn how to talk to toddlers. He's pretty sure him treating Tony like he would an adult isn't helping the baby in his arms.

Halfway through taking Tony's wet clothes off, he realizes that Tony is wearing a diaper which also needs changing. God, he's so not cut out for taking care of babies.   
Peter has to Google diaper changing because he doesn't want to mess anything up and give Tony a rash. It takes 20 minutes for him to change the diaper but it comes out looking okay and Peter's kinda proud of himself for getting it right on his first try.   
He then puts Tony in a onesie and carries the toddler with him towards his room. Its too late and he's tired. Tony's also starting to nod off in his arms. He'll ask someone where they usually put Tony to bed, in the morning. 

He's extra careful to put pillows around Tony to make sure he doesn't role off the bed during the night. Tony looks big enough to not do that but Peter can't be too careful.   
Putting him to sleep isn't that difficult, he's out within minutes. Peter's stays awake for another hour, making sure Tony is sleeping well and pondering over this situation. He's going to have a long hard talk with Tony about being responsible during missions once he's back to his normal self, Peter decides.


	10. 10

Peter wakes up to small hands running across his face. They poke at his cheeks and pull at his ears until he's fully awake and sitting up.  
"Hi!" Tony greets cheerfully. Peter can't help but smile.

"Hey, Mr. Stark." Peter ruffles Tony's hair affectionately. The toddler latches onto Peter's retreating hand and tries to playfully chew on his fingers. Peter can't help but giggle at the toddler. Its almost 11 am. He doesn't know how long Tony's been awake. He must be hungry.

Peter makes sure Tony can see him before he gets up to wash his face and brush his teeth. He keeps the bathroom door open in case Tony needs him.

He walks into the communal area 15 minutes later. Clint is the first one he spots. The archer is sitting on the couch, as soon as he sees Tony though, he's out of his seat in seconds. He takes Tony from Peter, the toddler going willingly. 

"How long were you going to hog him for, Parker? I've been waiting for you to bring him down for hours." Clint playfully remarks. He then tells Peter that he's going to go get Tony changed and fed. 

Peter goes to get himself some breakfast. Clint comes around after a while with a freshly changed Tony. Clint puts him in his chair and gets to making some cereal for the toddler.  
Peter decides that he needs some time away from this whole situation, so after breakfast he disappears down in the labs. Its not that he doesn't want to be around Tony, its just that Tony is so small now and so easily breakable. Peter is so afraid that he or someone else might accidentally hurt Tony or if word gets out about Tony no longer being able to defend himself, someone might try to kidnap and hurt him. That scares Peter to his very core. He wants to disassociate himself from the toddler as much as possible as to not cause any difficulties for him. 

\- 

Clearly, people in the compound can't take a freaking hint. As much as Peter wants to stay away from Tony, the others always find a way to get them to spend some time together. Its been a week since he decided to stay at the compound. Its summer vacation so Aunt May won't even be angry with him for missing his academic responsibilities.  
This is not at all how he imagined his vacation to be going.

If its not Natasha asking him to change Tony's diaper because she got called in to shield at the last minute, its Steve, telling him to play with the toddler while he makes a snack. Somehow, they've gotten Loki to side with them too. Just 2 days ago, he decided to put Tony in Peter's lap unannounced and started asking bizarre questions about midgardian rules about raising children. Even Vision has asked Peter to help baby sit Tony when everyone was gone for a meeting, because he's 'a robot' and 'doesn't know much about children'. He thinks he's fooled Peter, but Peter knows Vision's in cahoots with everyone else! He knows it! When will people learn that he's a walking disaster?! He's not equipped to take care of children, okay?!

"Hey Pete, you mind looking after Tony while I-"

"Nope!" Before Bucky can utter another word, Peter is already out of his chair and half way across the living room.

"No! You will not do this to me Mr. Barnes!" 

"But I just-"

"I trusted you!" With that, Peter walks away as fast as he can.

Thor, who is just now entering the living room, stares after Peter's retreating figure and smirks at Bucky. 

"Think we've finally broken the young spider." He casually remarks. Bucky huffs out a laugh and hands Tony to Thor while he gets himself a glass of water. Tony starts quietly babbling gibberish and playing with Thor's beard. 

"He needs to learn to take care of his teammates. This is hard on him and us but he's treating Tony like he's made of china. He needs to understand that Tony relies on all of us now to keep him safe." 

Thor looks at Tony in wonder as the toddler keeps playing with Thor's beard. He's not a very talkative child. It sometimes worries Thor. Children Tony's age tend to talk a lot whether it makes sense to the adults or not. It makes Thor wonder about the things he's heard about Howard Stark. He must truly be a horrible father. But Bucky is right though, with Tony like this, every single one of them should be ready to tackle any situation regarding his safety, should the need arise. They can't have Peter scared to be alone with him.

Thor decides to talk about this with Natasha, surely she'd know how they can make Peter bond with Tony. 

\- 

Two days later, everyone present at the compound (Bruce, Loki, Carol and Sam) are called into shield for an emergency mission. Peter is given baby sitting duty. Peter's 99% sure that Natasha had some hand in leaving him alone with Tony today.

"Pete, make sure you take Tony outside today." Bruce says in a hurry. He's trying to gather some files in a neat order.

"Outside?" Peter asks, his voice a little panicky now.

"Yeah, he's been getting fussy being kept up here ever since he became like this. Make sure he gets some fresh air." Bruce finally has all his files in a neat order and starts to walks away, the quiver in Peter's voice stops him though.

"Bruce, I-I can't. He's ... so small. What if I lose him? Or he gets hurt? Or-or." Bruce gently places his hands on Peter's shoulders to calm him down.

"Pete, you'll be fine. Trust me, he'll be safe with you. He adores you the most out of all of us." 

"But I-" 

"Peter," Bruce says, fully looking at Peter now, "I know that you're scared. I know. But Tony needs you to protect him. Not just here, as a babysitter but as a teammate too. Okay? You need to learn to be there for him."  
Peter nods hesitantly and Bruce smiles.

They're almost out of the door when Loki stops Peter, who now has Tony in his arms.  
"Don't call him Mr. Stark in public, Peter. We don't want people getting any ideas." Peter nods dumbly, the thought never having even crossed his mind. See? This is exactly why he's not fit to do this. He sighs tiredly, and walks back into the communal area. 

After feeding Tony a snack, he decides to take him down to the labs. The last time Peter was down there, Butterfingers, Dum-E and You seemed to miss him. They haven't seen Tony in a month, so naturally they're worried.  
The labs have been cleared of any dangerous equipment ever since Tony decided to pay Bruce's lab a visit. Peter puts the toddler down, Dum-E who had been trying to pick a screw driver off the table in the corner, puts it down and comes over to inspect the new person in the room. Tony, just as the fearless person he is, goes over to inspect Dum-E, as well.

Dum-E hovers around Tony uncertainly for a few minutes before deciding that the tiny human is not a threat and starts playing with the toddler. Peter has to put some distance between Dum-E and Tony so Dum-E won't accidentally hurt Tony. The toddler seems just as excited to be able to interact with a robot.  
You also comes out from behind a wall upon hearing the happy screams of the toddler. The 2 robots seem fascinated by the small child, Peter's guessing they've never seen a baby before. Butterfingers, who is usually very clumsy, takes extra care in inspecting Tony. They poke at him which always seems to draw out laughs from the toddler. Peter takes a video and tells Friday to save it for Tony to see when he gets back to normal. 

After a while, Peter decides to take Tony upstairs and get him ready for a walk. He dresses him and prepares a bag pack with diapers and some snacks for Tony. Peter decides to call Ned and ask him to meet up. There's no way Peter will be able to look after Tony all by himself. 

The first words out of Ned's mouth are, and Peter quotes, "Tiny baby!" Ned loves kids, and as long as Peter can remember, he stops to say hi to children whenever they're out and come upon one. 

"Hi!" Tony matches Ned's enthusiasm.

"Oh my god, did you see that? He said hi to me. Hi baby, hi. You're so cute!" While Ned has a melt down over Tony, Peter steps aside to ask Karen to inform him if there's any suspicious or hazardous activity within a 5 mile radius. He wants to keep Tony as far away from danger as possible. 

When he turns around, he finds what looks to be a serious debate between his best friend and his mentor. 

"So you like the red one better? You're a man of culture, I see." Tony babbles incoherently in response.

"What are you guys talking about?" Peter asks.

"Power rangers. We like the red one." Peter smiles, he's missed this, being dumb with his friends. Ever since he's started college and his added responsibility of being an intern for Tony and Spiderman, he's had less chances to be like this with his friends. This is nice. He feels like he can turn his brain off for the afternoon and just hang out with Ned like they used to in high school. 

Peter let's Tony run around in the park with other children. He's following Tony like a shadow because he's worried some other kid might accidentally hurt Tony. Ned points this out and Peter realizes that he has not told Ned that the child they're babysitting is actually Tony Stark. Ned hasn't asked either and has been calling Tony 'baby' for the better part of the afternoon.  
After a while, Tony tires himself out and toddles back to Peter. 

"Up, Pete." He mumbles quietly, but Peter picks it up with his enhanced hearing. He has Tony in his arms in no time. He takes out a juice box from the bag pack and hands it to Tony.  
Ned suggests that they should eat something since he's getting hungry and he's sure that the baby is too after running around for that long.

There's a local diner only a few blocks away from the park. The waitress knows Peter since he stops by occasionally on his way to the compound. She seats them and hands them their menus. 

"Hey Ned, if I tell you something awesome about the baby, do you promise not to freak out?" 

"Dude, I never freak out."

"Debatable, but okay." 

Peter sighs, he hopes he won't regret this.  
"This is Tony."

"...Okay?"

"Tony Stark." 

Ned laughs. Peter doesn't. 

"You're not laughing." Ned realizes. "You're not...laughing, that means- holy shit! No way."  
Ned almost screams but Peter has his hand on his best friend's mouth in seconds.

"Ned, shh! No one can know about this!" 

"But, how- I don't. You- and everyone el- How?!" Ned struggles to form a proper sentence. Peter gives Ned a short run down of things. Ned looks so excited, Peter's worried that he might explode.  
Besides them, Tony struggles to finish his french fries and nuggets.

"Dude, we're babysitting The Tony Stark right now." Ned whisper yells.

"Call him Tony, we can't let anyone find out who he is."

Ned nods excitedly and goes back to his burger. So far, things are going way better than Peter had expected.  
Peter's phone rings and he excuses himself to answer it. Its Bucky, asking to know how he and Tony are doing. How Bucky knows that Peter and Tony are out together today, he will never know. But he's sure Natasha has everything to do with it. 

"You doing okay, kid? How's Tony?" Bucky sounds concerned.

"We're fine. Everything's fine Mr. Barnes." 

Bucky informs him that he will be back by the time Peter gets to the compound with Tony, and hangs up.

When he makes it back to their table, Tony has managed to smear ketchup all over his face and hands. Peter's lucky that he hasn't messed up his cloths. Ned is taking pictures of a smiley-covered-with-ketchup Tony. Peter tells Ned to send him all those pictures and takes Tony to the bathroom to get him cleaned up. It seems that the toddler is too excited to get cleaned and ends up getting water from the faucet all over himself. Peter ends up changing Tony's cloths in the bathroom. Its a good thing he'd packed an extra pair of cloths. You can't be too careful when it comes to babies, he's learned.

By the time they leave the diner, its almost 5 pm. Tony points at an ice cream parlour they pass and will not stop pointing and pulling at Peter's cloths. Peter doesn't even know if the toddler is allowed ice cream but he's not about to say no to Tony's pouting face. They get chocolate fudge for the toddler. Within minutes, Tony has managed to get more than half of his ice cream on his face and hands rather than inside his mouth. Peter feeds him the rest to make sure Tony gets to eat at least some of it. Ned makes weird faces to keep the toddler entertained.

This is the most active Peter has seen Tony. Around the compound he's more quieter.  
Maybe he should ask Natasha if Ned can come for future visits to keep Tony company.  
On his right, Tony moves. Its too sudden for Peter to catch, by the time he has his full attention on Tony, he has successfully managed to run his tiny, ice cream covered hands all over Peter's shirt. Peter sighs. He doesn't mind it though, ice cream on his cloths is no big deal compared to an alien attack happening right this instant and killing them all. Okay, maybe not an alien attack but still. 

After they've finished their ice cream, Peter once again has to clean up Tony. The little avenger doesn't fuss though. That's another thing Peter has noticed. Tony's obedient for a 3 year old. A little too obedient maybe. Peter saw a child Tony's age in the park chasing his dog and eat dirt today. Children Tony's age aren't docile like he is. Peter decides he'll ask Friday about it later, or Vision.  
For now, its almost 8 pm and Bucky (or anyone who gets to the compound and doesn't find them there) must be getting worried.

Peter says bye to Ned and makes his way to the compound. 10 minutes later, he realizes that he shouldn't be walking that far at this time of night, especially because he has a child with him, so he takes an uber. Tony is nodding off on Peter's shoulder. The uber driver is stunned when he pulls up to the location Peter had told him and finds the avengers facility.  
Peter thanks him and makes his way across the front garden and in through the door. Peter is not ready for what greets him.


	11. 11

He's not sure what he's walked in on. The facility is on lockdown. There's alarms blaring everywhere and the usual lights are off, the compound is running on backup generators. The entrance hall is lit up with red lights. Peter tightens his grip on Tony's small body. The toddler has not woken up yet but with the way the alarm is going off, he's sure that he will soon and he's going to be cranky.

Out of the corner of his eye, he catches Natasha's red hair. She rushes towards him and puts a set of noise canceling headset on Tony. The toddler stirs a little but goes back to sleep. Natasha makes no move to take him from Peter. 

"What's going on?" 

"We don't know yet, someone or something tried to breach the parameter. Friday put everything on lockdown."

Natasha starts walking towards the elevator as she explains the situation and Peter follows.

"Whatever it is, its smart enough to get inside the mainframe and shut the power off. Friday cut off all outside access before it could reach any important information." 

"That's impossible. Nothing should be able to get past Friday's firewalls." If Friday had to shut everything down just to keep someone out, then they've got trouble on their hands.

The elevator stops on the floor of Bruce's lab. Bruce is hard at work, tapping away on a hologram at lightening speed.

"Bruce, did you find anything?" Natasha asks upon entering. Peter quietly follows. His spidey sense has been picking up low levels of danger but he guesses its warning him against whoever tried to breach the compound.

"No. There's nothing on the surface level, and there's only a certain point to which I can access Friday's files. I'll need Tony's authorization codes for a full access." 

"Then use them. Right now, our top priority is wiping out the potential threat, especially with Tony like this. We can't take any risks, Bruce." 

Bruce looks tired, as if he hasn't slept or eaten in a long time.

"I'd love to Nat, but I don't have Tony's codes. No one but Tony does, as far as I know." 

"I-I have Mr. Starks' authorization codes." Peter chimes in. Bruce turns towards him at a speed Peter didn't think was humanly possible. 

"God! Pete. How long have you been standing there?!" 

"A while." Peter shrugs. Natasha looks like she's having a hard time stopping herself from giggling. 

"Kid, not that I'm not happy you're here and know Tony's codes but do not ever do that to me again. I almost died." Bruce puts a hand over his heart, as if willing it to stop beating so fast. 

Now Peter's having a hard time stopping himself from giggling. Bruce clears his throat and Peter gets to work. 

"Friday, Alpha override. Secondary user, Peter Benjamin Parker, 1388957." 

"Welcome to the main frame, Mr. Parker. How may I help you today?" Friday asks, if Peter didn't know that this is the default greeting for the Alpha override users, he'd have thought that Friday had downgraded to some shitty automated response, like voice machines. Peter, by this point, has made his way towards Bruce and is studying the hologram Bruce has opened up. 

"There was a breach in your files at 7:34 pm today. What's the status on that?" 

"I shut everything down before any information was taken. There was, however, an attempt to access secure files on the boss' private server. Specifically, the avengers initiative files." 

"What do these files contain?" Natasha asks.

"Boss keeps updates on all the missions the team has either taken or assisted with. They contain every single mission report and sensitive information on every member of the team. There's also a potential recruits list on the server and the blueprints to the team's suits and weapons."

"If that information gets into the wrong hands..." Bruce is hesitant to finish his sentence, "there would be not only ourselves but innocent people at risk."

There's the sound of footsteps, Peter picks it up because of his enhanced hearing. A few minutes later, Bucky walks in. He looks relived seeing Peter there. Then he takes a sleeping Tony from Peter's arms and cradles the toddler against his chest.

"Any news?" 

"Not yet, but whoever it was, they were trying to access Tony's private server." Natasha suddenly looks so tired to Peter. 

"Friday, trace the breach back to its source, I want to know who's been trying to break in and steal our stuff. You guys," Peter turns to point at the others, "go take a nap or something." 

They hear Friday's 'Right away, Mr. Parker.' 

"We're not gonna just leave you here Peter. A nap is the last thing we should be thinking about right now." Bucky answers.

"Look, Mr. Barnes. No offense but you look like shit right now. You need to rest, all of you."

He catches Natasha and Bruce giving each other a look.

"Look guys, if I find anything, I promise I'll come get you. You need to relax and put Mr. Stark to bed. He's had a long day." 

"Peter, are you sure?" Bruce asks, Peter can visibly detect his shoulders sagging down. The man is about ready to drop. Peter gently grabs his shoulders and pushes him out of the lab.

"Go. Shoo. Let me work." 

Natasha smirks and gives a knowing look to Bucky. They think they're so sly but Peter still catches it. Bucky tells him that he'll be down in a few hours to check up on Peter and leaves with Natasha and Bruce. 

"Karen." 

"Yes, Peter?" The AI's voice rings out. At first, he thought that Karen was only in his suit. Turns out, Tony keeps a backup server for Karen in his lab. She only answers to Peter though. He's kinda grateful that Tony doesn't spy on him even though he has full access to Karen.

"Natasha mentioned a parameter breach on the compound. Get me a full report on it."

"Of course. Captain Rogers is there right now. Would you like me to patch him through?" 

"Yeah."

A few seconds later, Steve's voice fills the lab. They discuss in detail about the damage to the parameter that initially forced the compound into lockdown. Steve has his suspicions about it being either some piece of technology or some alien. There's no way a human could rip out chunks of medal just like that. The wiring is broken and messed up too. Peter's gonna have to fix that later. There's no surveillance footage either. Whatever it was, it ripped out the area's camera as well. It lays broken at Steve's feet. The intruder made sure to leave no traces behind.   
After he hangs up with Steve, Peter sets to find the source of the hack. Behind him, Dum-E, Butterfingers and You make worried chirps. They constantly roll by him and rub their claws against his leg in comfort. No wonder Tony is so fond of them.   
All the others seemed on edge earlier when they were down in the lab. Even Steve. With Tony like this, they're all extra stressed. Peter has grown fond of the toddler in the few hours he has spend with him, but he can't wait for him to turn back to normal. God knows they need him.

\- 

Its exactly 2 hours and 12 minutes later when Friday addresses him. There's a red blip on the hologram displayed in front of him. Peter carefully puts down the widow bite in his hand that he had been modifying. 

"Where is this?" He asks.

"Shibuya, Japan." 

"Fri, are you sure that's the source of the breach?"

"Positive Mr. Parker. It took me a while to chase it down. Whoever did this is very skilled with computers." 

"Have we had any previous conflicts that are connected to Japan in any way?" 

"Not as a team but Ms. Romanoff and Sargent Barnes did have quiet a few missions connected to Japan in their assassin days. Dr. Banner has also had work related business there." 

Peter sighs. "Friday, can you find out exactly where in Shibuya did this person tried to hack us from?" 

"On it." 

Its almost almost 11 pm and Peter realizes that he's starving. The last snack he had was ice cream around 7 pm and he can't go more than 4 hours without some form of nutrition or energy. Sure, when he's on missions, his body could sustain him for days but that's a survival instinct. As much as Peter wants to, he shouldn't starve himself in favor of work. 

He picks up faint footsteps coming from the direction of the elevator. They get heavier and heavier until they're right outside the door. 

"Peter." Peter is surprised to hear Loki's voice. He rarely shows up at the compound these days. Peter turns around to greet the god. He's dressed in casual midgardian attire, Peter notices. Black jeans, a gray sweater and hair tied into a bun. It oddly suits him. To passerbys, he'd look like any other ordinary 30 year old dude. 

"Here." Loki puts down Chinese food containers on one of the desks. "Natasha asked me bring this down for you." 

"Thanks." Peter randomly picks up a box and begins eating the contents inside without really tasting it. Give him a break, he's starving.

"When did you get here?" Peter asks in between bites.

"An hour ago. Steve called, said you guys needed help with something." Loki carefully studies the red blip still displayed on the hologram.

"Yeah, someone tried to break into the compound and Friday. We're trying to get an exact location. Is Thor here too?" 

"Yes, him and Bruce are outside inspecting the hole your intruder managed to put in Stark's expensive midgardian metal." 

"Yeah, Mr. Rogers did say that he thinks its some alien tech." 

"I'm not so sure." Loki answers, his hands drop down to pat You. 

Peter swallows his egg fried rice, "What do you mean?" 

"The universe was kind of thrown out of loop after the whole Thanos debacle. Its not only earth that's starting to stand up on its feet again, its all the nine realms. Anthony was the only one with a strong enough will to put on that gauntlet and snap Thanos and his army away. It was ballsy, especially for someone...human." 

"I... don't understand." 

Loki has a look in his eyes that Peter can't quite place.

"My point, Peter, is that Anthony is kind of a living legend among all the universe out there. They know what he's capable of. No one will dare lay their hands on him or his family unless they wish to die like Thanos. The only people who don't know to what extent Anthony went to save everyone are the midgardians." 

This was true to some extent. Sure, the avengers had disclosed a short and discreet mission report which was then released to the public. It highlighted Tony as the main reason as to why the decimated life was now back, and it also mentioned some other notable sacrifices made by the rest of the team or individuals who were involved in the final conflict, but an in detail report was never released to the public, not even SHIELD knew the whole of what had happened. Everything was safely locked away inside Friday. Information like that wasn't meant for the eyes of the public.

Peter sighs. He's tired. He just wants to go to sleep for like 50 years. All this stuff is happening so fast and more than half of the team is either on missions or off planet. Tony isn't his normal self either. He used to think that being Spiderman was awesome, it still is but this job comes with a lot of stress and responsibilities. Now he knows why Tony looks like a literal zombie whenever Peter visits. 

Loki stays and chats with him a little longer. Peter's grateful for that. Loki might still be a little stiff around the others but he helps in his own kind of way. After the god has left, Peter gets back to work. They need to find the source of the breach and fast.


	12. 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To clear things up a little bit: this fic takes place 3-4 years after the snap. Peter is 20 and is finished with his first year of college. Tony and Pepper are married but don't have any kids yet. Everyone miraculously survived.

Bruce gets down to the kitchen around 9:30 the next morning. Peter is sitting at the counter with a lot of different holograms opened in front of him. Tony is on the floor of the living room, playing with his toys. Peter has positioned himself in such a way that he is easily able to do his work while keeping an eye on Tony. The toddler is holding tightly onto a dinosaur plushie that Clint had gotten him.

"Morning." Bruce greets Peter and gets to making himself a cup of tea. From the living room floor, Tony babbles at him excitedly in his own form of greeting. Peter smiles at the brief interaction, then asks Friday to call everyone down to the communal floor. 

"Everything okay, kid?" Bruce inquires. Peter has dark circles under his eyes and he's still wearing the cloths from yesterday. If Bruce had to guess, he'd say that Peter had pulled an all nighter down in the lab. He wants to say something, but now is probably not a good time. Peter is probably tired as hell, the last thing he needs right now is a lecture from a grown up about being responsible. 

"Yeah, I think I may have found something though." 

Steve and Thor are the first ones down. Natasha, Loki and Bucky follow not long after. Bucky looks like he's not having a very good morning. There's baby powder all over his cloths and a diaper stuck to his pant leg. Its a clean diaper but Peter still wonders how it got there in the first place. 

He hears Bruce quietly giggling in the kitchen.  
"Not one word." Bucky announces in a deadly tone. Peter decides he'll pull the surveillance footage on this incident later. 

"Peter, what's up?" Thor redirects the attention towards Peter. With a flick of his fingers, Peter sends the holograms flying all over the room. They enlarge to a size easily readable for the others. One of then stops before Natasha. There's a map with a red blip right in the middle of it. 

"I found our friend from last night." Peter comes to stand beside Natasha and enlarges the hologram even more. 

"This is the place the hack originated from, or so I thought." He opens up another hologram, this time with a lot of red blips on it. "This person knows his way around a computer." 

Steve squints at the hologram. "Looks like he worked hard to make sure he wouldn't be found so easily." 

"Yeah. He used proxies, his signal bounced off of almost every major city in the world, but-" Peter pulls off another hologram, "this is where we'll find him." 

The map looks familiar and Natasha realizes that its of Hungary. Specifically Budapest, Hungary. 

Peter pulls up another hologram, this time there's the face of a man displayed on it. 

"This is Tenya Hamada. 8 years ago Natasha had a mission which included busting an arms deal. Mr. Stark provided assistance from base." 

"I remember that." Natasha interrupts Peter. "It wasn't just an arms deal. Tenya Hamada, the guy who was leading the deal was also designing a biological weapon right under their noses. Threat level was equal to anthrax. It was easily spreadable through air or water and only a few drops had the potential to wipe out hundreds of thousands of people at a time. Not only people but other forms of life as well."

"So, what you're saying is that if released, it could have wiped out the entire planet in a matter of weeks?" Loki enquires. He looks horrified at the information. 

"Not only that, it had no smell and no taste. It was virtually undetectable." 

"Cure?" Bruce asks, though something about Natasha's expression tells him that he isn't going to get a favorable answer. 

"SHIELD did come up with one, but it'll take millions to manufacture. Plus once this drug is in your system, you die within 5 hours max. Its impossible to get to people in time." 

"So where is this Hamada guy now?" Bucky asks. 

"He died while in custody." 

"I don't understand." Thor asks, confused.

"Kenneth Hamada is Tenya Hamada's son. He was only a teenager when SHIELD arrested his father. I went back 8 years and traced his digital footprint." Peter explains. "He's been busy plotting revenge." 

"Do we have an exact location?" Steve is moving towards Peter to get a closer look at Kenneth Hamada's picture. 

"Yes we do. But I have a question."

"What is it?" 

"Natasha, did SHIELD confiscate everything related to this biological weapon? Formulas, notes?" 

"To the best of my knowledge, yes they did." Natasha looks even more worried now.

"So you're sure this guy can't replicate it even if he tried to?"

"No. SHIELD was still being infiltrated by Hydra back then. Who's to say they didn't steal it for themselves?" 

"I did find a trail for chemicals being shipped to a location he has under an alias. Its the kind of stuff you wouldn't easily be able to find. Some of it is banned in the US. He's probably been getting it from the black market."

"Wait wait, so you're telling me that this guy is planning to remake a biological weapon that could wipe out the entire planet within days, if used right?" Peter doesn't think he's seen Bruce this stressed before. 

"I'm not sure how it'll effect enhanced individuals like Steve or myself, or gods but the rest of the population is as good as gone." Peter supplies.

"So why was he trying to break into Friday last night?" Loki asks, yet his eyes remain on the ceiling. Peter imagines that Loki's trying to address Friday in an indirect manner.

"Probably to get information. In his mind, Mr. Stark and Natasha are the very reason this guy's father is dead. He'll do anything to get revenge, even if it means wiping out half the planet in the process." 

Its probably unnoticeable to the human ear but Bucky picks it up easily. So does Steve. Peter's voice is starting to sound hoarse. Its probably because the kid's been up all night in the lab. Sometimes he acts just like Tony. Speaking of which, Tony himself isn't looking very awake right now either. Bucky goes to pick up the toddler, he has his head laid out on Bucky's shoulder to take a nap in seconds.

"Why is he so tired? Its 10 in the morning." Natasha asks, taking her attention off of Peter for a second.

"Oh, he's been up since 4 am." Peter answers from behind her. "He wouldn't go back to sleep so I took him to the lab with me." 

"Okay, you need to sleep. Both of you." Bucky nudges Peter in the direction of the elevator.

"What? No! We need to catch Hamada." 

"No. We," Thor points at everyone present except for Peter, "need to catch Hamada. You need to rest." 

"But-" 

"Kid, its okay. Don't worry about it too much."

"I don't need a nap." Peter pouts.

"No offense, but you look like crap right now." Bucky smirks. "Go take a nap. We'll wrap this thing up and be back in no time." 

"But I-" 

"No ifs, ands or buts. While Tony is like this, you're our responsibility. I don't want to be yelled at when he turns back to normal and finds you walking around like a zombie."

"This is so unfair! I'm 20. I should be allowed to make my own decisions." 

"I saw you trying to make smoothie with pizza and ketchup." Steve interjects.

"I was young and stupid." 

"That was 3 months ago." Steve deadpans.

"Ughh, you guys are the worst." Peter decides that this is a good time to stomp away to his room, so he does.

Once in his room, he throws himself onto his bed in the most dramatic way that he can. This is what those disney princesses must feel like.  
This is so unfair though. He wants to go along on this mission and help out. He's been getting better with his stress and anxiety and his therapist also thinks that he's ready to step back into the field. He understands that staying behind and resting is the best option for him right now but some part of him wants to get off his ass already. Peter wishes Tony was his normal self. He'd probably let Peter come along. He'd get the whole 'if you try to take on the bad guys all by yourself without backup, you're grounded for life' speech, sure, but at least Tony would take him along. 

There's a little tug at his sleeve, which had been hanging off the side of the bed. Peter lifts his head from the pillow to discover a drowsy Tony tugging at his sleeve. The toddler looks worried. Peter lifts him onto the bed and cuddles him into his side. Tony giggles.

"Peter." 

He knows he's being a baby right now, but he still refuses to turn around when Natasha calls his name a second time.

"Are you seriously not going to turn around?" She asks, amused.

"Yes." 

There's a dip behind him. Natasha runs her hand up and down his back.

"I know you're upset but try to understand where we're coming from. We're worried about you Pete." 

"...I know." Peter sighs. He hasn't been very stable after the war. It took a lot out of him to witness Tony's almost death. It still haunts him, and he knows that the others worry about him because he's the youngest. He suddenly feels very guilty for acting up with Bucky earlier.

"I'm sorry." 

"Don't worry about it. Just get some rest, okay? We'll be back in no time." With that, Natasha gets up and walks out. Tony has pretty much dozed off at this point so Peter decides he might as well take a nap too.


	13. 13

When Peter wakes up, its dark outside. Its only 3 pm. There's dark clouds all over and its about to rain. The loud thunder wakes Tony up as well. The toddler looks scared and crawls into Peter's lap. There's a loud crack of thunder just then and Tony clings to Peter even more tightly. 

"Hey, its okay. Just a little thunder buddy." Peter reassures. "Friday, can you block out all the noise please?" 

"Sure thing, Mr. Parker." 

Peter gives an amused smile, "You don't have to call me "Mr. Parker" all the time, you know that?" 

"Then what would you like me to call you, Mr. Parker?" If Friday was a human, he imagines she'd be making that face Tony makes when he's being a little rascal.

"Just Peter is fine."

"Okay, 'just Peter'." 

Yup, there's no way anyone can design such a snarky AI besides Tony.

As soon as the sound of thunder fades out, Tony relaxes a bit, yet still doesn't completely let go of Peter. Peter decides that he should get Tony and himself a snack. He also asks Friday to keep him updated on the mission. It seems like all his life lately consists of is either getting Tony fed or changed. 

After feeding Tony a few strawberries and a cookie (he's not good at this, okay) he heads down to the one of many indoor gardens of the compound. By now, the thunder has ceased and only the rain remains. Tony is fascinated by the color of the dimmed sky and the rain. He squiggles in Peter's arms and Peter, after finding a spot where he's 100% sure any bugs won't get to Tony, puts him down to play. Its the end of June so Peter isn't that worried about Tony catching a cold. 

It seems Tony has discovered a puddle, one of the many joys of rain. He bends down on his tiny legs and runs his hand through the water, then promptly slaps the surface of the water as hard as he can. The water splashes everywhere. Tony let's out a joyous shriek. He then proceeds to throw his entire body in the puddle. Peter let's him. He wants to see Tony having a good childhood while he's like this. He's heard stories that Howard Stark wasn't a good father and it shows in the way Tony reacts sometimes. It makes Peter's heart ache for the little child. The man has been nothing but kind towards Peter since the day he's met him. Its rare but he's heard Tony mention his fear of turning out like his father in between his scoldings whenever Peter was reckless during missions, which is ridiculous because Tony has never been like Howard in his parenting. 

A loud splash brings Peter out of his thoughts. Tony has, at this point, successfully managed to cover himself in the rain water and mud. Peter walks towards Tony and wipes away the mud from his face with the sleeve of his shirt. Tony holds onto Peter's retreating hand. 

"Pete, play?" Tony requests. Peter physically can't say no to Tony's puppy eyes, so he spends the next half hour splashing rain water at Tony and vice versa. They're both soaked to the bone and Peter decides that its time to head inside now. He gives Tony a bath and takes a quick shower himself. By the time he's done, its almost 7 pm. He's on his way to the kitchen with Tony when Friday addresses him and opens up a hologram in front of him. It contains the updates to the mission which he thanks Friday for and quickly skims over the details. So far, things are going smoothly it seems.   
By the time he feeds Tony and gets him ready for bed, its 10 pm and a car is pulling into the compound parking lot. Friday informs him that its Scott Lang and Agent Barton. Usually, they aren't asked to identify themselves upon entrance but due to yesterday's lockdown, Friday has temporarily implemented security protocols that require them to do so. It seems they are unaware of the whole fiasco as they were busy with their own missions and absent from the compound for several days. 

Tony, however, brightens up once he spots Clint and demands to be held. Scott spends the better part of an hour cooing over the toddler. He reaches out to poke Tony occasionally to make sure that this is a real baby and the rest of the team aren't playing a prank on him with this 'Tony turned into a baby' gimmick. Tony doesn't mind the occasional poke though and keeps talking to Clint and Scott in his baby gibberish. Peter manages to catch the toddler saying his name a couple of times and the words 'lunch' (which Tony pronounces as 'wunch') or 'juice' or 'play'. 

They manage to put him to sleep around 12:30 am. The toddler wasn't that tired because he took a nap with Peter earlier. Peter takes a mental note to limit his nap time so he won't stay up so late.  
With Tony asleep, Peter explains their current predicament to Scott and Clint. They agree to stand by as back up and not leave the compound for the next few days.

Its almost 2 am now and both Scott and Clint have retired to their respective rooms. Peter stays with Tony though, in case the toddler wakes up in the middle of the night. He doesn't want Tony to get spooked by the dark.  
Despite the late hour, Peter is wide awake. He realizes that he's never been into Tony's room at the compound before. Its littered with Tony's things. They're placed in a neat manner though. It feels oddly bare compared to his and Pepper's room at their cabin. There's a few Ironman portraits on the walls, expensive perfumes on the dressing table, there's a picture of him and Peter on his side table. It was taken the day Peter received his internship certificate. Tony is wearing a 'duck-rabbit' T-shirt and they're both holding the certificate. Its upside down though. Peter remembers that day, he remembers being so excited for his internship with Tony. He remembers Tony doing bunny ears behind Peter's head in one of the pictures and Peter doing the same to him. 

He shifts his attention back to the toddler sleeping soundly on the bed. Its weird how he looks so different from his grown up self. His hair is lighter and his skin is smooth and scar free. He's curled in on himself in a fetal position. Peter moves his hair away from his eyes so it won't irritate him. Speaking of hair, they really should get him a haircut soon. Its getting longer and its bound to become annoying for the little avenger soon. Maybe he can ask Natasha when she gets back. For now, he lays down next to Tony and tries to get some sleep.


	14. 14

Its been 3 days since everyone had left for the mission. Peter is not at the compound today and Clint had to be at SHIELD for some meeting with Fury so Tony is left with Scott.

He may have not been there for the first few years of Cassie's life but Scott is surprisingly very good with children. He's had Tony shrieking from laughter almost all day. He builds a castle from old cardboard boxes which he found laying around in one of Bruce's labs. Together, they spend the better part of the morning ruling over their kingdom. He even builds Tony a small crown from the cardboard.   
Then after lunch, he decides to introduce Tony to the joy of painting. They make hand turkeys and various other animals together. By the time they're done, Tony has covered himself in paint and glitter. Scott soon learns that giving Tony glitter was a mistake because now it won't wash out of his hair. He has to shampoo Tony's hair 3 times and even then there's some traces of glitter left. Oh well, he's sure it'll wash out eventually. 

Its almost 4 pm and Tony is yawning and looks exhausted. Scott realizes that the toddler probably needs a nap and puts him down to sleep. After that he attempts to clear the glitter/paint mess off the kitchen table. It turns out, getting glitter off of furniture is even harder than washing it out of hair. Peter returns to the compound by 6:30 and finds Scott passed out on the sofa, covered in glitter. He doesn't even question it. He's used to walking in on bizarre situations ever since Tony's regression. 

He finds Tony still soundly sleeping in his room. He should probably wake the toddler up or else he will be up all night.   
Out of the corner of his eye, he spots Tony's glasses on his side table. Peter has always wanted to wear them and Tony has always kinda been weirdly strict about Peter not wearing the glasses. Peter decides to seize this opportunity. He swifty picks them up and puts them on. He moves towards the bathroom to see how he looks in the mirror. Before he even takes a step though, the glasses light up and Friday's voice echoes in his ears. 

"Hello, Peter." 

Peter has to put a hand over his heart and physically will it to stop beating so hard. He was not expecting Friday to be programmed into the glasses. 

"Hey Friday."

"You know you're not allowed to touch these glasses." 

He now understands why.

"Yeah." Peter sighs and takes the glasses off and puts them where he had found them. He wakes Tony up. The toddler cracks an eye open upon the gentle shaking. Upon seeing Peter, he raises his hands up for Peter to pick him up. By the time Peter brings him outside, there's the sound of the quinjet landing and then Friday informs them that Natasha and the others have returned. Friday's voice wakes Scott up as well and they walk out to greet the others. 

Thor is the first one who walks off the jet. He looks exhausted, well, about as exhausted as a god can look. He still looks better than the others. Loki is supporting Natasha who's walking with a wobble. Peter suspects its a sprained ankle. Steve and Bucky also look like they haven't slept in a week. Bruce is the only one of them who looks someone decent.

"Are you okay?" Scott asks and takes Natasha from Loki. He helps her walk inside. 

"I'm fine." But the tone of her voice suggests otherwise. She sounds like she's in immense pain. 

Tony perks up upon seeing the others. Thor smiles down at the toddler before going inside. Loki holds his hands out to Tony. The toddler goes to him eagerly. 

"Are you sure? You look tired." Peter asks. Loki waves at him in a 'don't worry about it' gesture. 

Inside, Scott helps Natasha onto the sofa and puts an ice bag on her injured foot. 

"It looks pretty bad, what happened?" Natasha is quiet for a long time. She refuses to meet Scott's eyes.

"She slipped on a small rock." Bruce supplies. "She's just embarrassed about it." 

"Shut up." Natasha mumbles.

"Why are you covered in glitter and paint?" Steve speaks up from his place on the other sofa.

"And why does Anthony have glitter in his hair?" Loki is running his fingers through Tony's hair and trying to get the glitter out. 

"We did some arts and crafts earlier. I tried to wash it out." Scott is trying to avoid Natasha because he can feel her glaring at him. Loki sighs and flicks his fingers which are covered with a green glow. All the glitter and paint suddenly disappears from both Scott and Tony. 

After a brief mission report, everyone heads up to their rooms. Peter helps Natasha walk to her room. Bruce says that its just a light sprain and should be healed in 4-5 days, though Natasha shouldn't put any unnecessary pressure on it.

He doubts anyone would be coming down to dinner tonight, though he orders enough chinese for everyone. The first thing that catches Peter's attention when he enters the kitchen is a collection of paintings pinned to the fridge. There's paintings of all kinds of animals and flowers and some symbols which he recognizes from their suits. Peter's spider symbol is one of them. There's the black widow symbol which is on Natasha's suit, there's also Steve's shield and a splash of green, which could either symbolize Hulk or Loki. Peter's not sure which one. Scott must have put these here.   
Its honestly the cutest thing Peter has seen. He takes them off the fridge and safety puts them away in his room. He decides to frame them so that Tony can see them after he turns back to his normal self.

Its two days later that Rhodey walks into the compound and is greeted with the living room wall framed with pictures. There's also a metal plank screwed into the wall below them, which reads 'A Masterpiece by Tony Stark'   
Rhodey admires the drawings for a few minutes then moves on to find Tony and the others. 

The toddler in question runs into his legs not even 3 seconds later. He falls down on his butt but gets back up and runs towards Bucky, who is sitting down on the floor with a bunch of building blocks.

"Not even gonna say hello to your best friend huh." 

"Don't be such a baby, he doesn't even remember you." Bucky teases. Tony barely pays attention to Rhodey and continues playing with his blocks. Rhodey sits down on the floor with the toddler. He and Bucky talk about his recent mission a bit while Tony is still immersed in his toys. Their conversation comes to a stop when Tony notices the prosthetic leg supports on Rhodey's legs. They're glowing in places and they make a cool whirring sound every time Rhodey moves them. Tony is immediately fascinated by them and spends the next 10 minutes poking away at them.

"Pretty cool, aren't they?" Tony nods his head as an answer, too busy in admiring the cool robot legs than in forming a proper reply.

"You made them for me."

"I did?" The toddler looks as if his tiny brain cannot comprehend the possibility of making something so cool. 

"Yes, you did." 

After a while, Tony busies himself with playing with his toys again and Bucky and Rhodey discuss his current condition. Bruce just took a blood test yesterday and the toddler should turn back to his normal self in 4-5 weeks. Rhodey is glad to hear this. He's been so busy with his missions, that he hasn't even gotten a chance to visit Tony till now. The toddler looks fine though, aside from the fact he doesn't remember a thing from his adult life.

Rhodey stays for dinner but has to fly out again afterwords. Its around 11 pm that they're putting Tony to bed when Friday informs them that something has entered the atmosphere right above the compound.


	15. 15

The Benatar lands in front of the compound 15 minutes later. The guardians don't really come to earth unless they have some business to take care of or need Tony's help with something.

Drax is the first one off, Sam greets them at the entrance. After exchanging pleasantries, they make their way inside. Rocket explains that something is wrong with Nebula's circuits. Since Tony had fitted her with his Ironman tech, he figured Tony should be the one to fix it. The Benatar also looks in desperate need of repairs. Sam doesn't quite know how he should explain that Tony isn't able to help them right now because he is a baby so he just shows them to their rooms and leaves that problem for the one who's gonna be taking care of Tony tomorrow. 

The next morning, Steve walks in with Tony and discovers the living room covered with different kinds of leaves and flowers. 

"I am Groot." It takes Steve a moment to realize that Groot is actually sitting on the sofa. 

"Groot? When did you guys get in?" Steve walks towards the kitchen to make Tony a snack.

"Last night." Rocket, who Steve didn't even notice was sitting on the table eating some cookies, speaks up. "These are delicious by the way, what do you put in them? The souls of little children?" 

"Ha ha." Steve rolls his eyes at the raccoon though there's a hint of a smile on his face. 

"Where's Stark?" Rocket asks, reaching for another cookie. Steve puts Tony down in his high chair and puts a bowl of cereal in front of him. "And who's the kid?" Rocket adds as an afterthought, as if just now realizing that there's in fact a child in the room. 

"Tony." 

"Quill's right, you people are crazy." 

Steve has his best unimpressed look on. He explains the whole situation to Rocket. Rocket expresses his interest in getting the serum which has made Tony this way, you know, for research purposes. Steve doubts that it's only for research purposes. 

By the time Steve turns away to make himself coffee, he realizes that Tony's bowl is empty and the toddler is no longer in his chair. He must have climbed down. Its a habit he's picked up. He runs off when no one is looking, Steve worries that one of these days he'll get himself hurt. Turns out, Steve doesn't have to go looking for him because Gamora walks in holding the toddler a few minutes later. Tony is fascinated by the color of her hair and skin and refuses to be put down. He behaves the same way with Nebula and pokes at her metallic parts.

He is a little spooked by Drax. Drax, however, is very gentle and patient with Tony. Steve didn't expect him to be good with children. Mantis proves to be useful when Nebula's arm sparks and practically detaches from her body. This scares Tony into crying, Mantis helps him calm down with her abilities. Quill looks like he's having a bizarre dream and wants to wake up because really, what kind of an idiot goes into an armed enemy base without backup and manages to get themselves turned into their child self. Tony Stark, apparently.

Since Tony isn't able to fix whatever is causing Nebula's circuits to malfunction, Bucky assures them that Peter would take care of it. He should be returning back to the compound in 2 days from his Aunt's, anyways. He's the one who's most familiar with the makings of most of Tony's machines.   
Groot oddly takes an unusual liking to Tony and mostly spends the next two days hanging around with the child. Tony likes to be picked up by Groot, Groot can also produce plants, flowers and little firefly lights at will, which is fascinating to the toddler.

Peter walks into the compound two days later and discovers Rocket's head in Tony's arms. It seems like the toddler is trying to hug/pet him. Rocket looks less than thrilled but let's the toddler aggressively run his hands through his fur.

"Uh...." Peter is at a loss for words. Rocket spots Peter from the corner of his eye and untangles the toddler's hands from his fur.  
"Thank god you're here." He takes Tony's hands and leads him to Peter. He looks annoyed but his movements with Tony are very slow and careful, "Here, take him before I rip him to shreds."   
Peter picks Tony up who in turn hugs him in a form of greeting. Rocket is out of the room in 2 seconds, mumbling something about kids being annoying and testing his patience and how they're lucky he hasn't bitten anyone yet.

"Sorry about him." Peter turns at Gamora's voice and finds her standing at the kitchen door with a cup of coffee. "He's not used to being around children." 

"That's alright." Peter's speaking before his brain catches up to his mouth, "Mr. Stark's kinda annoying even as a grownup." 

Gamora hides her smile behind her cup. 

"So when did you guys get here?" He casually asks and moves to get himself something to drink. 

"2 days ago. Nebula's circuits have been glitching. Bucky said you'll be able to help with the repairs since you're familiar with what Tony put in her." 

"Oh right, because she has the same thing Mr. Stark uses for his Ironman suits." 

He hands Tony over to Gamora, and makes his way towards the main indoor garden where Gamora said Nebula is.  
His eyes land on Groot and Mantis first, who are busy admiring the different kinds of earth flowers. The garden was bare at first, with only a few benches and a fountain in the middle but Steve planted some flowers later on, because it looked 'robotic and lifeless'.   
Nebula is sitting in a far off corner on the ground in a criss cross position. She must be incredibly still because there's a butterfly resting on top of her head. As Peter approaches, it flies off. He sits beside her on the ground. 

"Hey." 

"Hey." Nebula answers after a few seconds.

"Gamora says you're having problems with your circuits." 

"Yeah, they just keep-" at that moment, the red metal casing around her eye becomes loose and slides out. She sighs and pushes it back into place, "coming off." 

"Did you have Rocket take a look?"

"He tried to fix them but I don't think he succeeded." 

Peter chats a little bit more with Nebula about the problems she's having with her circuits and prosthetic parts, then they both head down to Tony's lab so Peter can start fixing her up. He can't imagine how annoying it'd be to become undone every few minutes.   
When they enter, they find Rocket in a corner gathering up some spare parts and tools. He's also mumbling about how annoying human children are and how he has to fix up the ship and how its gonna take days since he's only getting started on it just now. 

"You know, I can call Scott in to help you." Peter offers. Scott is one of those people who look as dumb as a doorbell but are secretly geniuses. 

Rocket doubts that he'll be able to help but asks Peter to call him in anyway. It'll give him something to amuse himself with.

"Sorry about that, he's just used to being on his own a lot. Doesn't know how to say 'thank you' when someone's being nice to him." 

Peter smiles and waves it away. He doesn't mind. Rocket reminds Peter of Tony in many ways. Especially with the quick witted remarks.

It takes a few hours but Peter identifies the problem with Nebula's circuits. Turns out they'd been in a battle recently and Nebula had taken a few electric shocks. The wiring is all messed up, some parts are burnt. Rocket's attempt to fix them only messed up everything more because he isn't familiar with this kind of tech. Tony's Ironman tech is highly guarded. No one except him or the team has ever even laid hands on it. Tony's made sure that it doesn't fall into the wrong hands, especially the nanotech.   
Friday informs Peter that he and Nebula are being called up for dinner, so they decide to finish fixing up Nebula tomorrow and head up.   
Tony, instead of sitting in his own chair, is sitting in Quill's lap. He has Quill's helmet on his face and looks like he is having the time of his life playing with it. Drax is making funny faces at the toddler and tickling his feet. Natasha, who must have returned when Peter was down in the lab with Nebula, looks very amused at the whole scenario. Groot, Rocket and Gamora are nowhere in sight. Mantis informs them that they're outside, fixing up the ship with Scott.  
They eat their dinner in mostly silence, aside from Natasha and Nebula catching up and Quill feeding Tony, telling him to say 'aah' and all that.

"Who's a good boy? You are! Yes, you are!"

"Its a kid, not a dog, Quill."

Quill looks like as if he's never interacted with a child before in his life, and maybe he hasn't, Peter realizes. He hasn't been on earth in a long time. Peter has to give him credit for at least trying. At least he's making some effort.  
He imagines the guardians got a lecture on not making fun of Tony and treating him with care because he's sensitive from someone when they landed. 

After they're finished with dinner, everyone heads off to bed one by one. At some point, Scott walks in with a sleeping Rocket in his arms and heads off to put him in bed. Soon there's only Natasha, Peter and Drax left. Natasha looks tired so Peter assures her that he'll put Tony to sleep and sends her to get some rest. It couldn't be easy to run missions or attend meetings all day, especially with a sprained ankle.  
Peter's surprised however, when Drax requests to join him when he goes to give Tony his bath and then put him to bed.

"I had a daughter once." Peter looks up from putting Tony in a onesie. He's aware that Drax's family was killed by Ronan long ago.

"What was her name?" 

"Kamaria. It means 'like the moon'."

"That's a pretty name." Tony's starting to fall asleep in Peter's arms so he lays him down on the bed gently.

"As was she." 

Peter puts a few pillows around Tony to make sure he doesn't roll off the bed in his sleep. Drax helps him. They sit there for a while, making sure Tony's fully asleep and doesn't need anything.

"Have you ever thought about starting over?" 

"What do you mean?" Peter knows that Drax knows what he means, but Peter also knows that starting over isn't as easy as it sounds sometimes.

"I mean marry someone, start a family. What happened to your family wasn't your fault, you know, and you shouldn't punish yourself for it."   
Drax is quiet for a long time before he answers, "If I did that, I feel like I'd be betraying my dead wife and daughter." Tony moves a little in his sleep, Drax reaches over and moves his hair away from his eyes.

"I think they'd want you to be happy. I think they'd want you to have a good life." Honestly, Peter had expected Drax to walk out by now or tell him that he was being ridiculous. He's surprised that Drax is still listening to him.

"Where would I even find someone to start over with." Drax does little air quotes when he says 'start over with', and honestly, Peter is speechless for a solid 5 seconds. He stares at Drax incredulously, refusing to believe that those words even came out of his mouth in the first place.

"You're...you're kidding, right?" Peter asks, though his voice is so small, he wonders if he he even spoke at all.

"What?" And Drax looks genuinely confused.

"Mantis!" Peter's voice, a little louder than usual, makes Tony stir in his sleep. 

"What about Mantis?" 

"Please tell me you're joking right now." 

"...No?" 

Yup, Peter is having an aneurism.

"Drax, have you seriously not noticed that Mantis likes you?" He cannot possibly dumb this down for Drax. He's got to realize by now what Peter is trying to say to him.

"Of course she likes me, I'm nice." 

Oh Peter is most definitely having an aneurism. 

"Do I really have to spell this out for you?" Peter hopes that at this point, Drax has more or less understood what Peter is saying, but upon Drax's blank expression, he takes a deep breath and goes on to spell it out for Drax.

"Drax, Mantis likes y-"

"You already said that."

"Let me finish! Mantis likes you romantically. She is attracted to you. Have you seriously not noticed this?"

The fake laugh Peter gets in response, he's guessing because Drax is in denial about his feelings towards Mantis, is more than enough to tell him that Drax also finds Mantis attractive.

"She is one of the ugliest creatures I've ever seen. I do not like her like that." 

"I think she's very pretty, and I never said anything about *you* liking *her*." It takes Drax a moment to catch the meaning of Peter's words. When he does, he makes the classic excuse of 'its late' and 'I'm going to bed' and also, 'you're stupid' and books it out of there. Peter is honestly surprised that Drax didn't propose a fight to decide which one of them was right, he has done it before.

"Friday?" 

"Yes, Peter?" 

"When Mr. Stark turns back to his normal self, will you please remind me to apologize to him for ... well," and then Peter vaguely gestures in his own direction. 

"Sure thing, Peter." 

"Thanks, Friday." 

Talking to Drax has caused him a lot of his brain cells. This must be how Tony feels after talking to Peter on a daily bases. The man is a saint for putting up with him.


	16. 16

It takes a few days but Peter has Nebula's circuits fixed and in top condition. Rocket has also fixed up the ship with Scott's help.

The morning the Guardians are due to fly back into space, Tony throws another temper tantrum. Apparently he heard Gamora and Bruce talking last night and he doesn't want them to leave. Its like he's super glued himself to Mantis, no matter how hard they pull, he just won't let go. Even when Quill bends down to his eye level and tries to bribe him with some candy, Tony still has a death grip on Mantis. Mantis offers putting him to sleep but Natasha is very much aware that he'll throw another tantrum when he wakes up and doesn't find them in the compound.   
At the end, Nebula somehow coaxes him to let go of Mantis and pinky promises that she'll visit again.

"Got everything you need?" Bucky asks Rocket, who is loading their stuff into the ship.

"Yup."

"And you're sure you're not taking anything you're not suppose to be taking?" 

"Positive." 

"Then why's Dum-E's arm sticking out of your back pack?" 

"......Damn it." 

Peter steps off the ship with a couple of metal scraps and puts them down on the ground. "Hey Rocket, I found these in the back. They don't work anymore so- is that Dum-E's arm?" 

Rocket rolls his eyes, takes the arm out of his back pack and hands it over to Bucky, "You win this time." 

After they've taken off, Tony is quiet and keeps to himself most of the day. They all know he's sad about the guardians leaving and try to cheer him up all day.   
When Loki portals into the communal area that afternoon, he sees a sulky Tony and an exhausted Steve. No matter how much they try to distract the toddler, nothing is working.   
Steve looks like he's at his wit's end with Tony.   
"Never, ever have children." Is the first thing he says to Loki.

"...Are you okay?" 

"Everything hurts."

Even Loki has to take pity on the Captain. He tells Steve to rest for a bit and that he would look after Tony for a little while. Since Loki has the ability to teleport at will, he decides to take the toddler to Wakanda for a little visit. Shuri's been actually nagging Natasha to bring him over since she can't leave because of her responsibilities as the princess.

When he walks into Shuri's lab later, she's quick to take Tony from him.

"He's so cute, just look at his chubby cheeks!" 

"Hello to you, too." 

Shuri rolls her eyes good naturedly, hugs Loki in a form of greeting and goes back to playing with Tony, who seems fascinated by the tech and weapons surrounding them. Okoye and T'challa also make a stop by the lab to say hello to them. It seems that Tony has taken a liking to T'challa's necklace and insists on wearing it, Loki suspects its because the necklace is shiny. Of course the toddler has no idea that it's actually the black panther suit and not just a simple necklace. 

Tony also takes his time tracing over the markings on Okoye's head. She doesn't seem to mind. Loki can never tell with her, she's always so quiet and mysterious.

Shuri insists on them staying a little while longer but it's almost dinner time and Steve must be getting worried about Tony so Loki says their goodbyes and teleports them back to the compound. 

When he steps through the portal, Bruce is the one who takes Tony from him. Steve must have been called in for something. Thor is there as well, Tony perks up upon seeing him and calls out his name, only it sounds more like 'Tor', and not 'Thor'. The toddler wants to be held by Thor and spends the rest of dinner on Thor's lap. By bed time, he's almost completely forgotten about the guardians leaving and is excitedly talking with Bruce in baby gibberish.

"And then I play with...with," he stops in the middle of telling his story and turns to Loki for help in telling Bruce about the nice lady whom he spent the afternoon with.

"Shuri." Loki supplies.

"Yeah, Shuri." Though it comes out more like 'shoe-y'. 

They have a hard time putting him to sleep that night, since he's still talking excitedly about his visit to Wakanda. After they manage to put him to sleep, Bruce looks exhausted. Children take a lot out of you apparently, 'your will to live' as Sam often puts it. Peter had to leave this morning after the guardians took off but he is gonna be at the compound tomorrow and Bucky has every intention of sticking him with baby sitting duty.


	17. 17

There's already a bag pack ready and Tony dressed and fed, when Peter walks in the next morning. He sticks around and plays with the toddler a little while before Bucky informs him that he is to take Tony out today because a kid his age should not be cooped up in the compound for so long, and by the smug look Bucky is giving him right now, Peter has no doubt in his mind that he planned for Peter to take care of Tony today.

He can't complain though, he has genuinely come to enjoy the 3 year olds company. Peter calls Ned and asks him to meet them at the park nearby before leaving. He might as well take this chance to meet up with Ned, since he hasn't been able to, the last few days.

Tony is all smiles throughout the day. He's surrounded by adults all the time so he's taking great joy in running around with children his own age. On more than one occasion, Peter catches him trying to climb swings he's not suppose to be climbing. He makes sure to keep an eye on him at all times in case Tony accidentally falls down or something, though he doesn't interfere or stop him. Tony is at the age where he wants to do everything himself and Peter really doesn't want to upset him by telling him no, so he sits back on one of the benches with Ned and let's Tony hang out with children his own age for once.

-

Tony, after playing an intense game of tag with a few kids, suddenly finds himself exhausted. The sun is high up in the sky and it's getting a little hot, so he decides that he should head back to Peter. 

Before he even makes it halfway across the park, there's suddenly a strange man in front of him, blocking his path. Tony can't exactly put his finger on it but there's something off about the guy.

"Hey there, little buddy." The man has a sickly sweet voice, the smile seems extremely fake, as if it doesn't belong on the man's face. 

Tony has never been good with strangers, so he just side steps the man to look for Peter, before he even takes a step though, the man is pulling him back by his shirt.

"Are you lost? Who are you here with?" The man asks again with a fake smile, though this time there's more force behind it, as if he's angry that Tony tried to walk away from him.

"Wan' Pete." Tony manages to say, though his voice sounds so small, even to his own ears. 

"Oh, you're looking for Pete? I'll help you find him." And then the man takes his hand and starts walking in the opposite direction of the benches where Peter is probably sitting. Tony tries to yank his hand away but the man has a strong grip on him and won't let him go. Panic rises within him, he tries to yell out Peter's name but there's so much noise of the other children playing in the park, his voice gets lost with all the other voices. His hand is also starting to hurt from the strong grip of the man. He needs to find Peter, and fast.

-

Peter knows something is wrong with Tony as soon as his spidey sense goes off. It can't be anything avengers related since he asked Karen to inform him if there was any trouble nearby so he could get Tony out of harm's way.  
He scans the playing area quickly and upon not finding Tony anywhere, informs Ned. They both decide to split up and search everywhere. Its just possible that Tony fell down somewhere and injured himself but Peter suspects that its more than that, his spidey sense is going crazy.

He spots Tony a few minutes later, or at least, he spots the back of Tony's shirt. Some guy is holding his hand and pulling him away from the park. The toddler clearly seems distressed.

"Hey!" Peter stops a few steps away from the man, who still has a strong grip on Tony.

The man turns around feigning innocence, by far the most fake expression Peter has seen on anyone's face.

"Where are you taking him?" He asks, though he already suspects that he's not going to get a straight answer.

"He's lost, I was just taking him to find his family." The man answers back confidently. 

"You're taking him to find his family in the opposite direction of the park?" Its Ned who speaks this time and Peter realizes that his friend is standing right behind him. He was so focused on Tony that he never heard Ned approaching.

The man's expression changes only for a second, then its back to calm and collected. Peter wouldn't have even caught it if he weren't so focused on the man.

"I was taking him to the police station." He calmly answers Ned.

"Well you don't have to worry about that now, he's my little brother." The words leave Peter's mouth before his brain has had even a chance to register them. He's desperate to get Tony away from the man, there's something not right about him.

The man looks upset only for a few seconds, but then his face goes neutral, as if he was displeased to be interrupted by Peter and Ned. He let's go of Tony's hand. 

"Tony, come on bud." Peter bends down to pick him up, when Tony runs into his arms, he is shaking all over. Peter runs a hand on his back to calm him down a little bit.

"What did you say your name was?" Ned asks before the man can leave.

"Its... Frank." The man looks mildly uncomfortable now.

"Frank?" Ned presses further.

"Frank Luis." 

Before they can ask him any more questions, Frank turns around and quickly disappears into the trees and bushes.

It takes a few minutes for Peter to calm Tony down. The toddler is on the verge of tears and attaches himself to Peter like glue. It takes a few minutes of Ned making silly faces and funny noises to finally calm him down. They decide to head back to the tower. Peter also asks Karen to run a search on everyone named Frank Luis living near the park. There's only 7 Frank Luis(es) living in the immediate vicinity of the park but none of them is the one they saw in the park today. As Peter suspected, the man gave them a fake name. That probably means he has a criminal record, because he didn't want them to look him up. 

Peter decides that he'll talk to someone about this when he gets back to the compound. He doesn't have to though, because when they're leaving with Tony, they spot the same man lurking around some children playing soccer.  
Peter hands a drowsy Tony to Ned and asks him to take the toddler back to the compound and inform someone of what happened. He decides to follow the man as Spiderman.

The man gives up on the kids playing soccer when he spots their parents nearby and starts walking away from the park. Peter follows him to a house on the outskirts of town, where he goes into a house. The house itself is very run down and shady looking.

"Karen, run facial recognition."

It takes Karen only a few seconds to pull up a mug shot and a police file. 

"What am I looking at?" 

"This is Leonard Figgis. He was arrested 3 years ago for possession of child pornography and charges of pedophilia." 

It takes a few seconds for the words "child pornography" and "pedophilia" to register in Peter's mind, and when they do, its like the earth has slipped away from beneath his feet. He remembers how close this man was to Tony today, how he was holding his hand and leading him away to an isolated area of the park, away from anyone that could not have possibly seen or heard them. 

"You said he was arrested, did they let him go already?" 

"He was let go on parole 2 weeks ago on account of good behavior. He's not suppose to be anywhere near areas frequented by children." Karen answers back.

"So this freak is violating parole just 2 weeks after getting out of prison, huh." 

Peter decides then and there that he's not going home tonight until he lands this man in jail again.

\- 

"Um...hello?" Ned awkwardly calls out upon entering the compound gates. He hasn't been there much, only with Peter once or twice, so he doesn't exactly know the protocol of entry. Do they have to scan their ID badges or do they just walk in? Wouldn't that seem rude though? 

"Hello, Mr. Leeds." Friday's voice interrupts his thought process, he jumps back a little in surprise. "How may I help you today?" 

"Uh, Peter asked me to bring back Mr. Stark to the compound." And then he gestures towards the toddler asleep on his shoulder. "May I come in?" 

With a beep, the gate automatically opens, "Of course. I'll inform agent Barton that you're approaching." 

"Awesome." Ned says under his breath. He is never not going to be amazed by Friday.

When Ned makes it inside 10 minutes later, Clint is already waiting for him by the door. He takes Tony from Ned and tucks him in his bed.

"So kid, wanna tell me why you're here with Tony? Where's Peter." 

Ned tells him everything up to the point when Peter had told him to take Tony back and that he'd follow the suspicious man.

Clint looks very scary when he's angry. Though Ned understands the reasoning behind it, he would be angry too if someone tried to kidnap one of his friends. 

"Hey Ned," Steve walks in a few minutes later, "When did you get here?" 

Ned can physically feel the atmosphere shift when Steve realizes that Clint is awfully quiet. Ned excuses himself, it is getting late anyway and his mom would be getting worried about him. 

He makes a mental note to call Peter later and ask how it went at the stake out.

\- 

Peter climbs into the communal area via the windows late that night. He slowly eases a window open and steps inside. If he walked through the front door at this hour, it'll probably wake someone up. Its no use sneaking around though because the light to the living room is already on and Clint, Natasha, Steve and Bucky are still awake. 

Natasha is the first one by Peter's side, asking him what happened at the park today. Bucky and Clint look like they could kill a man right then and there. Steve has his no funny business face on.

Peter tells them that the man had been arrested before for pedophilia and that he'd decided to follow the man, Figgis, after their encounter. Of course the police wouldn't just believe him if he told them that he saw Figgis lurking around children so he had to collect proof. Figgis, after a few hours, left his house and went to lurk around a skate park. There he tried to talk to 2 small children, no older than 6, into coming with him. When he couldn't get them to come with him, he just grabbed a kid, no older than 4, when no one was looking and tried to run. Thank god Peter was there to stop him, or god knows what he would've done to that child.

The police was called and last Peter heard, the parents were going to press charges. Safe to say that Figgis will be rotting in jail for a long time.

They're all glad that Tony is safe and Peter put a bad guy behind bars today. The world could do well with one less Leonard Figgis in it.

"Where's Mr. Stark?" 

"In his room, asleep." Bucky supplies.

Its very late so everyone heads into their rooms to rest for the night, except Peter. He spends the night in Tony's room, curled around him, ready to protect him if something should happen.


End file.
